Strengthening ReLaTioNs
by Madninja324
Summary: follow Ryu Kawisaka during his time at Beacon. Dedicated to Monty Oum as of 2-5-15
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY or anything RWBY related with the exception of my OC's, everything else is property of Roosterteeth and Monty Oum.**

**Day one: arrival**

**Ryu Kawisaka, a seventeen year old boy of average height, with short, spiky dark green hair and eyes, and an athlete's slim, toned body, in a black t-shirt, with his symbol, an unsheathed ninjato inside a tornado, done in dark green, and black jeans, holding a sheathed sword, a ninjato, like his symbol, in his left hand, stepped onto the airship already nearly full of teenagers, all of them, including Ryu himself, were bound for Beacon Academy, one of Remnant's top Hunter Academies. Not wanting to be approached by too many people, and to keep his eyes on his surroundings, Ryu took a corner seat. His ninjato, Wind's Fang, lay across his lap like the safety bar on a carnival ride, Ryu was never really comfortable in a crowd unless he was carrying Wind's Fang, all these people made him edgy, the fact that every single person on this airship (with the possible exceptions of the pilot and co-pilot) were all heavily armed and highly trained just made his nerves worse. A retching sound shook Ryu out of his thoughts, a tall, lanky boy with messy blonde hair was busy vomiting into the closest trash can, Ryu winced in sympathy for the young man, motion sickness could be vicious, deciding to help the blonde Ryu stood and walked over to the other boy.**

**"****Motion sickness?" Ryu asked, mostly to start up the conversation.**

**The blonde straightened, he had bright blue eyes, and a miserable expression on his face, "yeah." The blonde admitted, clearly trying not to open his mouth as much as possible.**

**Ryu pulled some of the wrapped ginger root he always carried with him, unwrapped and broke off a piece, before handing it to the blonde. "Here, this always helps when I get seasick, maybe it'll do you some good." The blonde took the bit of ginger gratefully before popping it in his mouth and chewing thoroughly, it seemed to help some, or at least the worst of the nausea appeared to have passed, because the blonde stood up straight, fully a head taller than Ryu.**

**"****Thanks, I feel a little better now, my name's Jaune, Jaune Arc."**

**"****Ryu Kawisaka." Ryu took the moment to properly look Jaune over, the taller boy was dressed in jeans and a black hoodie under a white chestplate, with white pauldrons and brown fingerless leather gloves, a sheathed longsword and a pouch hung at his hips from a pair of belts, he carried himself in a manner that suggested he didn't have much confidence in his own abilities.**

**"****So... Ryu, where're you from?" Jaune asked.**

**"****A little village outside the kingdoms." Ryu didn't really like talking about his past, so he cast around for a new source of conversation, a curvy blonde girl with waist length, slightly messy hair was hugging the life out of a smaller, red haired girl in a black and red combat dress and a huge red cloak.**

**"****I wonder what that's about?" Ryu asked, indicating the two girls.**

**"****I heard them talking while I was running for that trash can, I wasn't really paying much attention, obviously, but the blonde was kinda loud, she was saying something about how proud she was of her little sister, I guess that would be the other girl." Jaune stated.**

** Ryu just looked at him, he was about to speak when the airship came to a sudden stop, the jolt made whatever help the bit of ginger had been doing for Jaune go out the window, or, more accurately, into the trash can outside the, now open, doors of the airship. **

**Not wanting to abandon the closest thing he had to a friend at this school to his misery Ryu walked over and rubbed Jaune's back, another trick he'd learned for alleviating motion sickness, when Jaune was finally ready to stop puking they started to walk towards the huge main building. Ryu wasn't usually impressed by architecture, but even he had to admit, Beacon was a sight to see, it looked like a huge castle with clusters of smaller buildings at varying distances all around the main building.**

**Ryu walked next to Jaune, holding Wind's Fang, sheathed of course, in his left hand, however the relative peace didn't last, ****_achoo! BOOM!_****Ryu's right hand leapt to the hilt of his sword, before realizing that the explosion hadn't been the result of an attack; standing not ten feet away were two soot covered girls, well, one was standing, and yelling at the prone girl, whom she apparently saw as the cause of the accident, Ryu walked forward so he could hear what was said.**

**"****... You complete dolt! What are you even doing here? Aren't you a little young to be attending Beacon?" The angry girl stamped her foot so hard she shook the soot off of herself, revealing a white combat dress under a red lined white bolero jacket, white high-heeled boots, pale skin, and long, snow white hair in an off-center ponytail, her ice-blue eyes were narrowed in anger. "This isn't an ordinary combat school, it's not just sparring and practice you know, so... Watch where you're going!" The angry girl yelled. This caused the previously cowering subject of her wrath to burst out. "I said I was sorry, ****_Princess_****!"**

**"****It's Heiress actually." A third girl wearing a black bow, with black hair and golden eyes, reading a leather bound book, walked over and picked up a bottle of red Dust, evidently, the source of the explosion that started the argument. "Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, one of the largest producers of energy propellant in the world."**

**"****Finally! Some respect!" Weiss Schnee exclaimed, before the black haired newcomer popped her bubble quite thoroughly. "This same company that's known for it's controversial labor practices, and questionable business partners."**

**"****What! The nerve!" Weiss Schnee was sputtering now, the smug look she'd been sporting only seconds ago was replace by outrage, the sneezer, who Ryu now realized was the cloaked girl from the airship, snickered. With a growl of frustration Weiss stalked over to the black haired girl, grabbed the bottle of Dust from her hand, and stalked off.**

**"****Guess I'm not the only one having a rough first day? So..." The cloaked girl turned to talk to her bow wearing rescuer, only to find her walking away, the girl gave a dejected sigh and flopped into a sitting position, "Welcome to Beacon." She muttered sadly to herself.**

**Jaune walked over to the redhead and offered his hand to help her up. "Hey, I'm Jaune." He greets.**

**"****Ruby." Replied the cloaked girl.**

**"****And I'm Ryu." Ryu added, stepping up next to Jaune.**

**Ruby looked at Jaune and her eyes widened slightly before she stifled a snort. "Aren't you the guy who threw up on the ship?"**

**Jaune winced. "I get motion sickness."**

**"****...All I'm saying is that motion sickness is a much more common problem than people let on." Jaune insisted, Ryu had been following the two of them for about ten minutes, only occasionally adding to the conversation, content to let the two of them have their debate.**

**"****I'm sorry, Vomit Boy was the first thing that came to mind." Ruby stated.**

**Jaune had his retort ready. "Oh, yeah? Well what if I called you Crater Face?" At this, Ryu had to try hard not to laugh, he didn't want to offend them.**

**Ruby leapt to her own defence. "Hey! That explosion was an accident!"**

**"****Well, the name's Jaune Arc, short, sweet, rolls off the tongue, the ladies love it!" He insisted.**

**At this Ryu finally let out a laugh. "Do they?" He asked.**

**"****They will! I-I mean, I hope they will, my Mom always says, never mind..." The blonde swordsman bumbled.**

**"****Soooo, I got this thing!" Ruby pulled something rectangular from the small of her back, it quickly unfolded into a huge scythe, it was even taller than it's owner, not exactly a difficult feat, seeing as she was ****_maybe _****five-four, at maximum. Jaune and Ryu gaped at the petite girl holding the massive weapon like it was nothing, finally Jaune piped up. "Whoa! I-is that a scythe?"**

**"****It's also a customizable, high-impact, sniper rifle." The cloaked girl announced with a grin. Ryu was impressed, but Jaune just looked confused. "A wha..."**

**Ryu cut in. "A gun Jaune, she says that it can turn into a really big gun."**

**"****Oh... Cool, so, what do you have Ryu?" Jaune asked.**

**Ryu shrugged and slowly drew Wind's Fang, displaying the emerald green ninjato to the other teens, Ruby's silver eyes went a bit misty as she fawned over the simple, yet exceedingly sharp blade, before asking a question. "So... What's it do?"**

**In answer Ryu sheathed the blade and focused his aura into the Dust infused metal, turning, so as not to hit the others, he drew his sword in a short slashing arc, before returning it to the sheathe almost faster than the other two could see, at the apex of the slash an arc of compressed air whistled outward on a straight path, until it hit a small tree, which promptly fell in two pieces, cut by the force of the hyper-compressed air from the "wind blade" technique.**

**"****Ooooh, that was so cool!" Ruby squeed.**

**"****What about you Jaune" Ryu asked, a little uncomfortable with the attention being paid him.**

**The lanky blonde looked slightly embarrassed as he drew his longsword, a simple, well-worn, though very sturdy, double edged blade. "I got this sword." Ruby looked impressed, it was a pretty good sword.**

**Jaune continued, pulling his sheath from his belt, it expanded into a simple kite shield with two gold crescents painted onto the face. "I got a shield too." Ruby reached out and touched the shield, accidentally triggering it, it contracted into a sheath, flying off of it's owner's arm, Jaune juggled the constantly expanding and contracting shield sheath, until he finally caught it, contracted it and put it back on his belt.**

**"****The shield get's smaller, so when I get tired of carrying it, I can just... put it away."**

**"****But.. Doesn't it weight the same?" Ruby pointed out.**

**"****Yeah, it does." Jaune admitted with a sigh.**

**"****I guess I'm kinda a dork when it comes to weapons, I guess I went a little overboard in designing Crescent Rose." Ruby offered. Both boys were floored.**

**"****You made that!?" They exclaimed simultaneously, impressed.**

**"****Of course, all the students at Signal are required to make their own weapons, didn't you guys make yours?" Asked a confused Ruby.**

**"****I did, but my teacher was helping me the entire time." Ryu answered.**

**"****No, I didn't, it's a hand-me-down, my great-great grandfather used it to fight in the war." Jaune, this caused Ryu to do a double take.**

**"****Did you say that sword has been in your family for five generations? That's more like a family heirloom than a hand-me-down, and it's still usable after, what, a hundred years? Whoever made that thing knew what they were doing!" Ryu exclaimed.**

**"****Well I like it." Ruby chipped in. "Not many people have an appreciation for the classics these days."**

**"****Thanks guys."**

**"****No problem, so, why'd you help me out back there in the courtyard?" Ruby asked.**

**Jaune shrugged. "Eh, why not, my Mom always says, 'strangers are just friends you haven't met yet'"**

**Suddenly Ruby stopped. "Do either of you guys know where we're going?"**

**Jaune shook his head. "I don't know, I was following you, Ryu?"**

**"****I was following you, Jaune."**

**"****Y-you think there might be a directory? Maybe a food court? Some kind of recognizable landmark?" When he saw the looks on his friends' faces his shoulders sagged. "That a no, huh?"**

**"****That's a no." Ruby stated with a bit of a laugh in her voice.  
**

* * *

**Character Bio: Ryu Kawisaka**

**Age: 17**

**Sex: male**

**Species: human**

**Height: 5'11"**

**Weight: 160lbs**

**Appearance: Ryu is has spiky green hair, and green eyes of the same shade as his hair (forest green) he tends to wear a lot of black and green**

**Semblance: Speed**

**Fighting Style: Iaido**

**Weapon Description: Wind's Fang is a 3' long pale green ninjato, with one edge, and a single handed grip, Wind's Fang was designed for fast, deadly strikes, the edge is kept incredibly sharp, but what really makes this weapon special is the sheer amount of wind Dust infused into the blade, which produces a blast of wind from the blade when combined with the wielder's aura and sent through a slashing motion, the speed of the slash determines the amount of compression the blast receives, a blindingly fast slash would produce a thin arc of air so tightly compressed that it has the same capacity for inflicting cuts as Wind's Fang itself, while a slow slash would result in a windstorm, also, other more advanced uses will be revealed**

**(Auther's note: my first fanfiction, hope you like it!)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Day one, part 2: Greetings and sleep**

**The three teens ran into the arena at ten forty, almost an hour later, all three were winded, Jaune more so than the others.**

**"****Ruby! Over here, I saved you a spot! And bring those two guys with you!" A girl in the crowd yelled, it was the blonde who had been hugging Ruby on the airship, the three of them complied, Ruby's sister was one of the most beautiful girls Ryu had ever seen, with violet eyes that sparkled with humor, and a purposefully disorganized wardrobe: a tan vest over a yellow v-neck shirt with a burning heart in black on the left side of her chest, she wore little black shorts surrounded by a sort of leather half-skirt, over a longer, white back skirt, one of the orange socks sticking out of her leather platform boots went up to her knee, the other barely made it out of the boot, on her hands were black, fingerless gloves, and encircling her wrists were a pair of what appeared to be mechanized gauntlets retracted into large bracelets, her long, messy blonde hair fell to her waist, and... Ryu couldn't help noticing, she had all the right curves, in all the right places.**

**"****How's your first day goin', little sister?" The blonde enquired.**

**"****You mean, since you ditched me and I exploded?!" Ruby retorted.**

**"****Yikes, meltdown already?"**

**"****No, I literally exploded a hole in front of the school! And there was some fire, and I-I think some ice?"**

**"****Are you being sarcastic?" Ruby's sister asked, a playful note in her voice.**

**"****Ugh, I wish! First I tripped over this crabby girls luggage, and then she yelled at me, then I sneezed, and then I ****_exploded _****and then she yelled again, and I felt really, really bad and I just wanted her to stop yelling at me!"**

**"****Ruby..." Ryu began to warn his new friend, too late.**

**"****YOU!" Weiss Schnee yelled, startling Ruby into her sister's arms.**

**"****Oh God, it's happening again!" She yelped.**

**"****You're lucky we weren't blown off the side of the cliff!" The angry heiress admonished.**

**Ruby's sister looked at her askance. "Oh my God, you really exploded."**

**"****It was an accident! I-it was an accident!" Ruby insisted.**

**Weiss shoved a pamphlet in Ruby's face, entitled "Dust for Dummies, and otherwise inadequate individuals."**

**"****What's this?" Ruby asked.**

**"****The Schnee Dust company is not responsible for any injuries, or damages sustained while operating a Schnee Dust Company product, althoughnotmanditorytheSchneeFamilyhighlyencouragesourcustomerstoreadandfamiliarizethemselveswiththiseasytofollowguidetoDustapplicationandpracticeinthefeild." Weiss' voice had gotten steadily higher and faster, until she sounded like a recording on fastforward.**

**"****Uh.. What?" Ruby asked, confused.**

**"****Do you really want to start making things up to me?" Weiss asked.**

**"****A-absolutely?" Said a still confused Ruby.**

**"****Read this, and don't ever speak to me again."**

**Ruby's sister decided to jump in to keep things from getting out of hand. "Look, you guys seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot, why don't you start over and try to be friends, okay?"**

**Ruby seemed to like the idea, as she held her hand for the heiress to shake. "Great idea, Sis! Hello, Weiss, I'm Ruby, wanna hang out? We could go shopping for school supplies!"**

**"****Yeah! And we can paint our nails, and try on clothes, and talk about cute boys like tall, blonde, and scraggly, or mr. dark and mysterious!" Weiss responded with clearly feigned enthusiasm.**

**Clear, at least to everyone but Ruby, who squealed in excitement. "WOW, REALLY?!"**

**"****No." The heiress replied, Ryu, Jaune, and Ruby's sister stepped forward to defend her, but before anyone could speak, they heard a cough from the sound system, all five turned to see a tall, thin man with silver hair, leaning on a cane, Professor Ozpin, the Headmaster.**

**"****I'll... Keep this brief, you have traveled here today in search of knowledge; to hone your craft and acquire new skills, and when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people. But I look amongst you, and all I see is wasted energy; in need of purpose, direction. You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only take you so far. It is up to you to take the first step." The silver haired man stepped back, and a stern looking blonde woman stepped up to address the crowd of potential students.**

**"****You will gather in the ballroom tonight, tomorrow your initiation begins, be ready, you are dismissed." With that, students began filtering out of the arena, Weiss Schnee walked off, and the four remaining teens turned to face each other.**

**Ryu waited while Jaune was introduced to Ruby's sister, who's name was Yang, and when it was time for him to introduce himself he held out his hand and met her violet eyes directly, which was harder than it sounded because, not only was she six inches shorter than he, when she gripped his hand, he could swear he heard bones popping.**

**"****Do you crush the hand of everyone who shakes hands with you?" Ryu asked.**

**Yang grinned. "Yup!" She responded cheerfully.**

**"****I'm not sure you should be that happy about it." Ryu muttered, rubbing his aching hand.**

**"****Oh, lighten up, Samurai Boy, you are way too tense." ****_Samurai Boy? _****Ryu thought, ****_that's a first. _****Ryu had never been called by a nickname before, he found that he didn't really mind it, so he said nothing.**

**Ryu spent the rest of the day trailing behind the sisters, or rather, being pulled along. Though Jaune had wandered off somewhere, Ryu reasoned that if he hung around someone it would minimize the number of people who approached him, it wasn't that he didn't like being around others, usually, but Ryu was a severe introvert, he knew his limits, and his shortcomings, and one of those was the fact that having to interact with large numbers of people exhausted him mentally, so he generally secluded himself for long periods of time, unfortunately, a certain enthusiastic blonde by the name of Yang Xiao Long, and her considerably less enthusiastic (if still excited) sister, Ruby Rose, took isolation off the table, they wanted to explore Beacon as much as possible, and Ryu couldn't deny that he was interested in finding out more about the place he would most likely be living in for the next four years.**

**Ryu lagged behind the girls until Yang called out to him.**

**"****Hey, Samurai Boy! You've gotta come see this!" Ryu rolled his eyes and moved to stand next to Yang, looking into a room that made his old teacher's weapons and training rooms look sparse, of course, Master's training room ****_had_****been sparse, but that had been the point, to cut down on distractions while they practiced. ****_This _****training room had something for everyone, sparring circles, weights, a boxing ring, a shooting range, apparently for guns ****_and_****bows, clearly the students who used the place didn't tend to clean up after themselves, and even something that might have been a Virtual Reality Pit.**

**"****This place is incredible!" Ruby gasped as she was admiring the weapons that hung from the wall, Yang was checking out the weights, and the punching bags, Ryu decided to examine the practice dummies, behind the practice dummies, was a sign that read: "destruction of dummies during practice is not penalized, spares can be found in the storage room to the right" sure enough the door to the right of the sign led to a room almost half the size the training room, filled nearly wall to wall with wooden dummies, as well as what were apparently sparring droids, Ryu closed the door and turned to find the girls were about to leave, Yang had turned, probably to call him over, but she saw that he was facing them and beckoned.**

**Ryu followed the girls, who were busy talking about the stuff they saw when they were exploring as they headed for the cafeteria, and food. Ryu's stomach was rumbling as he stood in line. When he finally got his food, a salad and some baked chicken, he took a seat next to Jaune, another guy, with black hair, golden eyes, and black cat ears sticking up from the top of his head, sat on Jaune's other side, wearing a leather jacket, an olive green muscle shirt, ripped jeans, and goggles on his head. Ryu suddenly felt naked without the comfortable weight of Wind's Fang in his hand (everyone had been ordered to store their weapons in the locker room). The cat Faunus smiled and waved in a friendly manner, he had a tuna salad sandwich in his right hand that he took a bite from before speaking.**

**"****_Mfch, gulp_****, hey man, you must be Ryu, Jaune already told me about you, and you must be him, I mean how many green haired guys in black could be at Beacon?" Ryu simply nodded to confirm his identity.**

**"****Not much of a talker, are you? That's cool! I've always been told I talk enough for two people, anyway. My name's Troy, by the way." Another bite of sandwich vanished down Troy's throat, he took his time to savor this bite, and chew, before swallowing and resuming his motor mouth chatter.**

**"****Tuna, nature's greatest gift! This stuff is the best! You know, not many people appreciate tuna like it should be appreciated, that's my opinion at any rate, in case you haven't figured it out yes, tuna is my favorite food, what's yours? Favorite food, I mean."**

**"****Watermelon." Ryu said, not wanting to give this chatterbox anything more to talk about, but knowing that he would simply pester Ryu if ignored.**

**"****Watermelon, huh? That's cool, Jaune here likes steak, and he also says that he can cook, I can't cook, can you cook? Maybe we can get Jaune to cook us something once we're all students here? What do ya say Jaune, buddy?" After that Ryu tried to zone out his chattery tablemate by looking around at all the other tables, Ruby was chattering with a girl with short orange hair, bluish-green eyes, and a constant smile, sitting next to a thin black haired eastern boy with magenta eyes, and a matching streak in his hair, who seemed to be either sleep-deprived, or bored, Ryu guessed the first one, if the smiling ginger was his friend. Yang was nearby laughing with some people who were obviously old friends of hers. A guffaw caught Ryu's attention, and his eyes narrowed in anger at what he saw, a tall, broad boy with short, reddish brown hair, and wearing a chestplate that sported the symbol of a bird, bullying a timid-looking dog Faunus boy.**

**"****Excuse me for a minute." Ryu's voice was flat and uninflected as he excused himself from the table, and, activating his Semblance, was across the lunchroom in less than a second, a minor windstorm springing up in his wake.**

**"****Alright, scum, had enough of picking on those weaker than yourself? Because if you are then walk away, and I don't hurt you." Ryu's voice, still flat and scarily calm, caused the large boy to turn, angry blue eyes meeting cold green eyes like chips of bottle glass.**

**"****What did you call me?" the bully asked.**

**"****Scum: bigoted, cowardly,self-important scum who needs to prey on those he sees as weak in order to feel like a ****_big tough man._****" ****Emotion entered Ryu's voice for the first time since the conversation started: contempt.**

**"****You're going to pay for that, you filthy animal lover!" The enraged bully lashed out with his fist, the strike was fast and powerful, but uncoordinated and awkward, Ryu simply leaned to the left, allowing the punch to sail past his right ear, the second strike was an uppercut, Ryu took one step back, and leaned away from it, again allowing it to sail harmlessly by before going on the offensive himself, a kick to the knee shook the bully's balance, without lowering his foot, Ryu sent a straight kick to the other boy's gut, knocking the wind out of him and causing him to bend over, which put him right in line for Ryu's third strike, slamming his previously lifted foot on the floor for a little extra boost, Ryu's other leg snapped up catching the bully behind the ear, knocking him flat, the entire attack had lasted ten seconds, with practically every eye in the room on him, Ryu walked calmly up to teacher on duty.**

**"****I would like to report myself for being the instigator of a non-sanctioned fight, and for injuring another student in that non-sanctioned fight."**

**The teacher, a round, elderly man with the largest mustache Ryu had ever seen, sputtered. "I-I should hope so, young man! You will need to see the headmaster right away! Oh, and someone take Mr. Winchester to the infirmary, please." Ryu waited while he gave two students directions to the infirmary. When Winchester was carried away, the corpulent Professor led Ryu through halls and up stairs to Professor Ozpin's office, while the fat teacher waited outside the door, Ryu entered the headmaster's office.**

**The office was spacious, and had several rotating gears suspended from the ceiling, while more gears were visible inside a wall to the right of the Ozpin's desk, the man himself sat in a wing backed swivel chair behind the desk, brown eyes looking at the stoic teen over small, round tinted lenses.**

**"****Ryu Kawisaka, I believe you are here to tell me about your fight with Cardin Winchester?"**

**_How did he know that? _****Ryu thought, before seeing the fight replaying on what was apparently a security camera feed.**

**"****Yes, sir. I overheard Cardin bullying another student, and I took exception to that, I warned him to walk away, and told him what I thought of him and those like him, he attacked me, I fought back." Ryu's voice was calm, simply stating the facts for the headmaster to judge.**

**"****And what exactly did you say to him?"**

**Ryu repeated his conversation with Cardin word for word.**

**"****Very well, Mr. Kawisaka, because you were protecting one of your classmates, I will not punish you, however, do not make a habit of this, or I ****_will _****take disciplinary action, my school is meant to teach the young to protect those who need it, regardless of species, social, or economic status, but not every conflict should be resolved with force, remember that, you are dismissed."**

**"****Thank you Headmaster." Ryu said, before walking out the door.**

**It was curfew time when Ryu arrived in the ballroom, changed into an old pair of sweatpants, and nothing else. As he walked into the ballroom, he saw Yang waving him over, with Ruby next to her writing some kind of letter; carrying his sleeping mat, Ryu walked over to the two sisters, stopping five feet away to unroll his sleeping mat. Yang flopped down next to her sister.**

**"****It's like a biiig slumber party!" The blonde exclaimed.**

**Her sister wasn't as excited and didn't look up from her letter as she responded. "I don't think Dad would approve of all the boys though."**

**"****I know I do!" Yang purred, checking out several of the guys, including, if Ryu wasn't mistaken, himself, then an "ugh" drew Ryu's eyes to where Yang was looking: Jaune, in baby blue footie pajamas with bunny ears sticking out from the feet, was walking by, Ryu let out a small chuckle at his friend's awkwardness.**

**"****So... Ryu, those were some pretty sweet moves you used on that big guy, where'd you learn to fight like that?" Yang enquired cheerfully.**

**"****I trained with a Iaido master outside of the Kingdoms, he taught me more than just swordsmanship."**

**"****Iaido? I've never heard of that, what is it?"**

**Ryu's mouth ticked up in a small smile. "Not too many have, it's a style of sword fighting that concentrates on unsheathing the sword to add speed to your slash, then resheathing it."**

**Ruby looked up. "Ooh! Was that what you did when you were showing us that 'Wind blade' move? I could barely see anything except you drawing and sheathing your sword, the slash was barely even visible. It was so cool!" Ryu nodded, accepting the praise without comment, before returning to the original question.**

**"****So, anyway Master Adam was my teacher from when I was six until four years ago."**

**"****Why did he stop?" Yang asked. Ryu shook his head.**

**"****I don't want to talk about that." Yang nodded in understanding, before turning back to her sister.**

**"****What's that?"**

**"****A letter to the gang back at Signal, I promised to tell them all about Beacon, and how thing's are going."**

**Yang couldn't resist teasing her sister. "Awww, that's so cuuuute."**

**A pillow from Ruby slammed her in the face. "Shut up! I didn't get to take my friends to school, it's weird not knowing anyone here." Ruby complained.**

**"****What about Jaune and Ryu? They're... Nice, there you go! Plus two friends! That's a two hundred percent increase!" Yang pointed out, trying to cheer up her sister.**

**"****I'm pretty sure Weiss counts a negative friend." Ruby pointed out glumly.**

**"****That's still a one hundred percent increase! Besides, there's no such thing as negative friends, you just made two friends and one enemy!" Yang countered, before a second pillow, shaped like a puppy head, hit her in the face. As she pushed the pillow off her face, Yang's voice got more serious. "It's only been one day, trust me, you've got friends all around you, you just haven't met them yet!" Yang reassured her little sister.**

**The sound of a match striking, caught Ruby's attention, she looked, then spoke.**

**"****That girl..."**

**"****You know her?" Yang asked.**

**"****Not really, she saw what happened this morning, but left before I could say anything."**

**"****Well, now's your chance!"**

**"****W-wait! What are you doing!" Ruby yelped as Yang grabbed her hand and dragged her over to the bow wearing girl, who still had her nose buried in her book, which she was reading by candlelight, from a small candelabrum.**

**"****Hellooo!" Yang sang out. "I believe the three of you may know each other?"**

**"****Aren't you the girl that exploded? And you're one of the guys who helped her afterwards?" The bow wearing girl asked.**

**Ruby stuck out her hand. "Uh, yeah! My name's Ruby, but you can just call me Crater... Actually, you can just call me Ruby."**

**"****Ok." the girl responded, returning to her book.**

**"****What are you doing!" Yang hissed.**

**"****I don't know! Help me!" Ruby whispered back.**

**"****So... What's your name?" Yang asked.**

**"****Blake." Blake answered, with a slight sigh of irritation.**

**"****Well, Blake I'm Yang! Ruby's older sister! And this is our friend, Ryu! I like your bow!"**

**"****Thanks." Clearly Blake's patience was running thin.**

**"****It goes great with your... Pajamas!" Yang offered.**

**"****Riight."**

**"****Nice night don't you think?" Yang asked, still trying to engage Blake in conversation.**

**Blake finally abandoned the subtle approach. "Yes, it's lovely, almost as lovely as this book... Which I will continue to read... As soon as you leave."**

**"****Yeah, this girl's a lost cause." Yang commented.**

**"****What's it about?" Ruby asked, startling Blake.**

**"****Huh?"**

**"****Your book, does it have a name?"**

**"****Well, it's about a man with two souls, each one fighting over control of his body."**

**"****Oh, yeah, that's...Real lovely." Yang was clearly not liking the description.**

**"****I love books." Ruby pressed onward. "Yang used to read to me every night before bed, stories of heroes, and monsters, they're one of the reasons I want to be a Huntress."**

**"****And why's that? Hoping you'll live happily ever after?" Blake asked, a hint of mockery in her voice.**

**"****I'm hoping we all will, as a girl, I wanted to be just like those heroes in the books, someone who fought for what was right, and who protected people who couldn't protect themselves."**

**"****That's... Very ambitious for a child, unfortunately, the real world isn't the same as a fairy tale." Blake commented, a bit wistfully.**

**Ruby was undaunted. "Well, that's why we're here, to make it better."**

**"****Oooh, I'm so proud of my baby sister!" Yang cried as she grabbed Ruby in a bear hug and picked her up, Ruby started to flail, and then they were fighting.**

**"****Well... Ruby, Yang, Ryu, it was nice meeting..." Blake began, before a very ticked off white haired heiress walked over to try to put a stop to the noise.**

**"****What in the world is going on over here!" The grumpy girl shouted. "Can't you tell, people are trying to sleep."**

**"****You're not helping Miss Schnee." Ryu pointed out, earning a ice-blue glare from the sleepy heiress.**

**"****Oh, not you again!" Yang and Ruby exclaimed.**

**"****Guys, shhh, she's right people are trying to sleep!" Ruby agrees.**

**"****Oh, so now you're on my side?" Weiss asked, annoyed.**

**"****I was always on your side!" Ruby protested.**

**"****Yeah! What's your problem with my sister? She's only trying to be nice!" Yang asks angrily.**

**"****She's a hazard to my health!" Weiss complained. The lights in the ballroom were turning off, until Blake blew out her candles, and plunged the room into darkness, all four of them made their way back to their sleeping areas by moonlight and fell asleep.**


	3. Chapter 3

Day: 2 part one: Initiation

Ryu woke up at five, he'd always been an early riser, a habit further ingrained into him by his training, when he and Master Adam would wake up just before dawn to exercise. After completing his morning routine, quietly, so as not to wake everyone up, Ryu got dressed in his combat clothes, essentially what he'd been wearing yesterday, with a pouch attached to his belt. Then he went to his locker and retrieved Wind's Fang, glad to have the familiar weight of the sword back in his hand Ryu allowed a small smile to form. Going outside, Ryu began running through drills, slowly speeding up until he was going as fast as he could without using his Semblance. When he sheathed his sword for the last time, he realized he had an audience, Troy was sitting on a tree branch, watching the display with an impressed look on his face, he had a P-90 strapped to his back and several pouches and ammo clips hanging from his belt.

"That was pretty cool! At the end you were moving so fast I couldn't even see your moves, but you didn't slip up once! Man, you must have gone through some pretty intense training to pull that off. So... What do you call that style? _Sword drawing slash of awesomeness_?" Ryu thought he was kidding, but responded truthfully.

"Iaido."

"Meh, I like mine better. So, that's your weapon, huh? Pretty cool, but why's the blade green? It looks like you're fighting with a string bean."

"I infused the maximum amount of Wind Dust I could into the blade without making it weak and fragile."

"Cool, what do you call it?"

"Wind's Fang."

"Oooh, nice name! This here's my Eternal Dreams." Troy pulled the P-90 off of his back, before spinning it, the gun mecha shifted into a halberd, before another spin turned it back into it's gun form.

"This weapon is my baby! I built her from the ground up. No other weapon could be better suited for me. So, I hear we're going to be partnering up for initiation, how about it, buddy?!"

"Somehow, I doubt we're going to be able to pick our partner, Troy, let's wait until initiation starts, and we know what the situation is, _then_ we'll see about partnering up."

"Okay! So... Are you gonna go inside? It's time for breakfast!" The two boy walked back inside. At the lunchroom Ryu saw the pink eyed guy and his hyperactive friend eating pancakes, while the boy was cutting his, the girl was zipping around, chattering his ear off about some plan to ensure that they would be partners, Ryu thought he heard something about bribing the headmaster. Cardin Winchester was apparently made of sterner stuff than Ryu gave him credit for, as he was eating bacon and eggs with three other boys, who all looked like thugs, except for the jumpy one with the blue hair, he just looked like a coward.

Jaune, Yang, and Ruby were all sitting together, so Ryu and Troy went over to sit with them once they got their food. Naturally, eating didn't stop Troy from talking.

"So... Jaune and Ryu, are either of you going to introduce me to these lovely ladies?"

Yang's eyes narrowed. "Stay away from my baby sister, unless you want to have your nuts in a new location."

"Troy, these are Ruby Rose, and Yang Xiao Long, Yang's a bit... Protective of her sister. Girls, this is Troy...?"

"Belladonna." Troy supplied.

After they had finished eating they, with the exception of Troy and Ryu, who had already done so, went to gather their equipment.

At eleven thirty on the dot Forty-eight initiates were gathered at Beacon cliff, the first twelve were told to stand on a line of metal platforms, while the others were in a tent, put there, presumably so that the newcomers wouldn't know what happened to the previous group.

Ozpin addressed the group of teens. "For years you have trained to become warriors, and today your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest."

The stern looking blonde, Professor Goodwitch, stepped forward. "Now, I'm sure many of you have heard rumors about the assignment of teams. Well, allow me to put an end to your confusion, each of you will be given teammates... Today." Ruby whimpered.

Ozpin cut back in. "These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon, so it is in your best interest to be paired with someone with whom you can work well... That being said, the first person you make eye contact with upon landing will be your partner for the next four years."

"WHAT!?" Ruby wailed, obviously terrified.

Ozpin continued as if nothing had happened. "After you've partnered up, make your way to the northern end of the forest, you will meet opposition along the way, do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path... or you _will_ die." Jaune let out a nervous laugh, then swallowed hard.

"You will be monitored and graded for the duration of the initiation, but our instructors will not intervene. You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path containing several relics, each pair must choose one and return to the top of the cliff, we will guard that item, as well as your standing, and grade you appropriately, are there any questions?"

Jaune raised his hand. "Uh, yeah, um...sir?"

"Good! Now take your positions." Ozpin spoke as if he hadn't heard Jaune. Ryu crouched and hovered his right hand over the hilt of Wind's Fang, still holding the sheathed ninjato in his left hand.

Jaune was still trying to ask his question. "Uh sir? I've got a, um, question."

Ryu never heard the rest of the question as he was launched into the air by the spring loaded platform he was standing on. _Keep calm Ryu, it's just an eight hundred foot fall, I just need to think of a way to land safely_, Ryu had reached the top of his arc, and was starting to fall, quickly he grabbed Wind's Fang's hilt and began pouring aura into the blade, Wind's Fang released a blast of wind whenever it was infused with aura and put through a slashing motion, the faster and harder the slash, the narrower and faster the 'wind blade' was, Ryu decided to use that in a different way than normal, instead of a fast, hard slash, Ryu began to draw his blade slowly, sweeping the blade down below in a wide arc, a wind storm erupted from the blade when he was fifteen feet from the ground, slowing his fall enough for him to turn the fall into a roll and land on his feet, returning Wind's Fang to it's sheath Ryu looked around, his landing hadn't been quiet, or subtle, the forest floor for ten feet around was swept clear of debris, and the glowing red eyes in the treeline said that it had already gotten him the wrong kind of attention.

The growls told him what he was facing: Beowulves. At least twenty of them; and they had him surrounded, Ryu only had one chance for survival: he activated his Semblance and ran up the trunk of a tree and onto a branch about twenty feet up. Ryu could feel his reserves start to run low, he needed food and rest, but the Beowulves were unlikely to allow him either of those things.

Beowulves couldn't climb, but they could jump, as one demonstrated by leaping straight for Ryu, who poured a bit more aura into his sword, drew, and slashed the air, sending a super compressed arc of air colliding with the jumping Beowulf, which fell into four pieces, the torso, the legs, and both arms. Ryu sheathed Wind's Fang, but he knew that the monsters wouldn't be dissuaded by the death of a packmate, unlike natural wolves, who don't start fights they aren't sure they'd win, Beowulves would attack until either their target was dead, or they were.

Three creatures leapt at Ryu, who met their attack with one of his own, he slammed feet-first into the first creature, quickly slashing it's throat out, then sheathing his blade, before jumping off the corpse, twirling in midair, and unleashing a flurry of slashes in midair, Ryu grabbed a branch with his right hand, having already sheathed Wind's Fang with the last strike, he braced his feet against the trunk, and, before the dismembered monsters had a chance to hit the ground, Ryu launched off of the tree trunk, tackling a particularly ugly beast, one swift twirling slash and the two on either side dropped with their throats laid wide open, a downward stab took care of the one he'd tackled.

Turning, Ryu flicked the blood off of his blade, and into the eyes of another charging monster, which he leaped over, and rolled down the back of, springing straight to his feet with an upward diagonal slash that nearly cut the next creature in half, a quick twirl severed the spinal cord of the blind monster behind him, but the move was too slow for him to stop another Beowulf from slamming him into the ground, knocking Wind's Fang from his grasp.

Ryu looked at the blood red teeth that were going to tear his throat out, he refused to die cowering, he began looking for a way to reach his sword, no good, too far away, the Beowulf was too close, and the others were rapidly closing in, when suddenly a burst of gunfire sounded, bullets tearing through Beowulf bodies, Ryu used the distraction to roll over, grab Wind's Fang, and spring to his feet, heading in the direction of his sheath, he scooped that up as the Alpha Beowulf, a huge anthropomorphic wolf covered in bony protrusions, reached Ryu's savior, who spun his gun and turned it into a familiar halberd as Troy Belladonna let loose a war cry and attacked the Alpha.

There were six remaining normal Beowulves, and Ryu charged them, sword in it's sheath, he rolled beneath the first claw swipe, landed on one knee and gutted the offending monster with a single slice, Wind's Fang quickly returned to it's sheath. The second monster didn't even have time to move before a slash sent it's head flying from it's shoulders, Ryu didn't have time to resheath, so he just performed a downward slash that opened up the entire length of the third monster's torso, a swipe of the sheath blocked an incoming claw swipe from the dying creature before it dropped, Wind's Fang returned to it's sheath briefly, before zipping out again to cut a charging Beowulf in half, the sheath slammed into the side of the next monster's head, stunning it as Ryu stabbed it's friend, before thrusting the sheath into the last Beowulf's trachea, crushing it's windpipe, and a green blade separated it's head from the rest of it.

Ryu saw Troy twirling his Eternal Dreams, blocking claw strikes, swinging at bite attempts, the cat Faunus was forcing the huge Beowulf back, scoring cut after cut on the creature's body, until it began to slow down from blood loss, finally the halberd's axe head met with the side of the Alpha's neck, and the beast expired in a gout of blood. Both boys looked each other in the eyes, they were partners,

"Dude, you okay? I thought that Beowulf was gonna have you for a doggy bone."

"I'm fine, thanks, just need to rest a bit."

"Okay man, I don't hear anything nearby, so go right ahead, we need to be at our best if we want to survive out here."

"Thanks." They sat for a few minutes, Ryu could feel his aura regenerating, not as fast as it would have if he'd brought something to eat, but fast enough that he was no longer worried about running out unless he was forced to do something crazy.

"Okay, I'm ready, let's go find that temple." The duo headed north.

Half an hour of walking later they heard the sound of gunfire, both boys reacted the same way, they both ran straight for the sound of combat, they barely hesitated when they found the fight, two girls, surrounded by close to eighty Beowulves, luckily there was no Alpha present, but eighty monsters was still a tall order for anyone.

"I'll take the twenty on the right, you take as many as you can on the left, and then the four of us should be able to take the rest!" Ryu shouted, hoping the girls would hear and respond appropriately, thankfully, they did, the tall redhead pressed a button on her metal bow, the string detached from the top and retracted into the bottom stave, with a mechanical click-whir noise, the bow straightened and what used to be the curved parts, sprouted blades, until the girl was holding a double-bladed sword, with a whirl she attacked the group in front of her.

The redhead's partner took a different strategy, turning her sniper rifle on the nearest group she opened fire. Ryu stopped paying attention to what his allies were doing as he charged the group of Beowulves on the right side of the battlefield. He hit with the speed and power of a thunderbolt, using his Semblance to boost his speed Ryu unleashed a flurry of slashes, felling the first five, in less time than it took to blink, he kept himself as mobile as possible, using his enhanced speed to duck, sidestep, twirl, and roll, every movement culminated in an attack that led to the next movement, by the time he'd killed nineteen Beowulves he could feel his aura running dangerously low, the strain of pushing his Semblance so hard was sapping his strength, with a lunge he drove Wind's Fang into the chest of the twentieth monster. Ryu could hear the others fighting, but it was all he could do to stay awake, much less turn around to see how the others were doing, but, since no monsters seemed to be tearing his back open, and he could still hear the sounds of combat, he assumed that they were still alive.

Suddenly Troy's voice rang out, sounding scared. "Ryu, incoming!" The fear sent a jolt of adrenaline through Ryu's body, suddenly he could move, though his abused body only managed to flop to his left and roll, once on his back he could see the fight raging, and slightly more pressing, the Beowulf that had broken free of the fighting to go after the most obviously weak target: Ryu.

* * *

(Author's Note: I just wanted to clear up something, which is, why Ryu barely hesitates when faced by overwhelming odds, sure he has the ability to take out twenty Beowulves by himself, but it left him nearly helpless, while there were still enemies around, and the answer is this: Ryu is suicidally reckless, he's not really aware of it, but he will continue to put himself in life threatening situations, because on some level he _want's_ to die, I plan on using this as fuel for character development, just expect situations like the end of this chapter to be fairly common until he's confronted and realizes what he's been doing.)


	4. Chapter 4

**Day 2, Part two: Beowulves**

**_ShitShitShitShit! _****Ryu thought frantically, the Beowulf was closing in, savoring it's prey's fear. Ryu's body wasn't responding to his commands, he was just too exhausted, fear and adrenaline were the only things keeping Ryu awake as he watched his death stalk closer, Ryu knew why he was helpless, he'd killed close to forty Beowulves in the space of an hour, with only a short break and a thirty minute walk during which to regain his stamina, on top of which he'd used his aura and Semblance extensively, he was running on nothing and he was lucky that he hadn't done permanent damage to himself, though the Beowulf preparing to tear his throat out made the last part sort of a moot point. For the second time that day Ryu knew with absolute certainty that he was going to die, at least, until he heard a ****_crack! _****And the Beowulf's head exploded, the sniper girl, a blonde with orange eyes, wearing a simple white t-shirt and jeans had shot the monster from across the clearing.**

**"****Look out!" Ryu called to his rescuer, who flipped her rifle over, so she was holding it by the barrel as a wedge shaped blade popped out of the butt of the gun, turning with a swing stronger than a girl her size should have been able to perform, the girl decapitated the Beowulf that had been trying to sneak up on her while her back was turned, retracting the blade, the blonde flipped her rifle into a shooting position and resumed picking off the monsters in front of her, until they finally got too close, at which point the girl flipped her rifle and extended the blade before charging the remaining six in her group. Troy and the redhead were back to back, fighting the remains of their groups, approximately thirteen in total. Ryu could tell that his comrades had this fight in the bag. When the last Beowulf fell, pierced through the heart by an arrow from the redhead's bow as it tried to escape, the three fighters ran to their barely conscious comrade.**

**"****Ryu! You okay dude?" Troy asked, his cat ears twitching with concern, the redhead expressed similar concern, while the blonde kept watch with her scope, occasionally shooting worried glances at Ryu.**

**"****I'm fine, just over extended myself, taking out that pack earlier really took it out of me, I think I'm just going to pass out now, if that's alright with you." And, true to his word, Ryu fainted.**

**Day two, part:2.1, Troy**

**Troy looked at his passed out partner ****_I hope you wake up soon, buddy, cause I'm not dragging your ass around for the rest of initiation_****Troy thought as he hoisted Ryu onto his shoulder in a fireman's carry.**

**"****Would one of you get his sword, please? And the sheath? Ryu's going to need them when he wakes up, thanks." He said as the redhead passed him the sheathed blade, which he shoved into his belt, before adjusting Ryu's weight and introducing himself to the girls.**

**"****I'm Troy Belladonna, my partner, sleeping beauty here, is named Ryu Kawisaka, we met yesterday, he's kinda stiff, has a really quick temper when he sees someone getting bullied, and he's got what may be the fastest sword arm I've ever seen. Of course he's not as awesome as yours truly, but he has his moments, so what are your names, ladies?"**

**The redhead spoke up. "I'm Laura Grace, this is Natalie Duvall, don't worry about her, she doesn't speak, ****_at all_****, I only know her name because she carved it on a tree." Natalie nodded, confirming what Laura had said.**

**Troy laughed. "Don't worry, Ryu's not exactly a chatterbox himself, unlike me, obviously, I've been told I talk enough for two people, so if we end up on the same team, I might have to start talking enough for ****_three _****people, I guess I'd better be on my game!"**

**Laura sighed. "Wonderful, first I get partnered with a girl who doesn't speak, now I'm stuck with the guy who doesn't shut up, someone up there must seriously hate me." Natalie nodded gravely, before resuming her surveillance of their surroundings, a quick thumbs up indicated that the surroundings were clear of threats, for the moment.**

**"****So, where'd you learn to fight? Did you go to a combat school, self-taught, or did you learn from some solo master like this lump?" Troy enquired, indicating the boy on his shoulder.**

**"****I'm a Sanctum graduate... Wait, that guy learned how to fight like that without ever attending a combat school?"**

**"****So far as I know, he said that he trained with some guy outside the kingdoms from age six to thirteen, he didn't say much beyond that, in fact he didn't even say any of that to me, I had to learn it from these two girls he met yesterday, he, like I said, isn't exactly chatty, so I asked about him, and they told me."**

**Both girls shook their heads in mild amazement, then the four of them went on their way, even if only three were doing so under their own power.**

**Day two, part: 2.2 Relics and Revelations**

**Ryu awoke to the sound of a hissing and scuttling, turning his head he saw something that scared the shit out of him, a white mask of bone, sporting eight burning red eyes and a pair of massive pincers, and worst of all, eight hairy black legs and a bulbous black body, armored in white boney plates, a Widowmaker. ****_Why did it have to be spiders? _****Ryu moaned internally, before addressing Troy.**

**"****I'm awake."**

**"****Oh, welcome back to the land of the living! Think you're up for running? 'Cause you're a pretty heavy weight to be carrying while running for your life."**

**In answer, Ryu rolled off his partner's shoulder, which was ****_really _****uncomfortable by the way, and hit the ground running, he knew using his Semblance would be a ****_very _****bad idea this soon after collapsing from aura drain, as it would probably kill him, but he was recovered enough to run at least, that was good to know.**

**"****I saved something for you Partner!" Troy called out, a wide grin on his face, as he pulled a sheathed Wind's Fang from his belt, they jumped over a huge log, big enough to slow the Grimm for one second, and Troy tossed the blade to Ryu, who caught it with his left hand, neither broke stride, both running flat-out to avoid being caught by the giant spider-like Grimm.**

**All of a sudden, the ground sloped downwards at a sharp angle, for the second time that day, the four teenagers were launched into thin air, this time by their own momentum, flailing slightly they landed on the slope and began sliding down, unfortunately the Widowmaker followed suit, massive spider scuttled down the incline, a stand of trees, several with low branches, was up ahead.**

**"****Into the trees! We need to put some distance between us and that Widowmaker!" Ryu called out, all four made momentum boosted leaps onto the tree branches, and leaping to the next, higher up branches, they kept leaping from branch to branch, but the heavy spider couldn't follow the four teen agers into the trees, though they could still hear it crashing through the forest below them, eventually the sounds of the Widowmaker faded away, and the four hunters in training descended from the trees.**

**About fifty minutes, an Ursa, and a pair of Boarbatusks later, they found the temple: a crumbling semicircle of stone pedestals with most of them holding chess pieces, though several were empty, judging by the remaining pieces, the ones missing were: both black bishops, both white knights, and both white rooks, a white queen, and a black knight, around the temple, the signs of a recent battle were evident, a huge, broken, wall of ice, and about a dozen massive feathers could be seen sticking from the ground.**

**"****Well, there's no point in wasting time, let's grab and go." Ryu commented. Troy bounded over to the temple, grabbed two white bishops and tossed one to Laura. A loud crash sounded, as the Widowmaker smashed through the trees, flanked by three dozen Beowulves, the four outnumbered initiates ran until they heard the sounds of a battle up ahead. As the pursued warriors burst into the open they were greeted by an awesome sight: Ruby Rose, her scythe blade clotheslining a Nevermore, was running up the face of a steep cliff, firing the gun function of her weapon to add to her momentum, until the massive avian's body caught on the edge of the cliff, and Crescent Rose sheared straight through flesh and bone, decapitating the Nevermore, and dropping it's body to the ground below.**

**"****INCOMING!" Yelled Troy as the crowd of Grimm behind them burst on scene, the seven initiates on ground level looked in their direction, the nearest group, Jaune, a smiling ginger girl with a massive war hammer, whom Ryu recognized from before initiation, her black haired pink-eyed friend in the green tailcoat, who looked like Ryu felt: tired, and... A grin began spreading over Ryu's face, Pyrrha Nikos, one of the few people his own age that Ryu held in high regard, and on the other side of a chasm, were Yang, Blake, and Weiss.**

**Feeling irrationally happy, Ryu called out to his friends. "Jaune! Pyrrha! Ruby!, Yang! We could use a little help!"**

**"****Cover them!" Jaune called to the others, the three teens standing around him readied their weapons, the grinning ginger's hammer shrank into a silver grenade launcher, the boy in green raised dual, bladed automatic pistols, and Pyrrha's weapon, Milo, shifted into it's rifle form, a red and gold carbine. The three fighters opened fire on the Grimm, covering their approaching comrades' retreat, Beowulves fell like rain, but any projectiles that hit the Widowmaker simply deflected off it's armor plating, except for a lone grenade that struck the monster head on, detonating in a pink explosion, causing the massive spider to hesitate for a second, but not much more than that. Soon ice shards, fireballs, handgun bullets, and sniper rounds joined the hail of weapons fire as Weiss, Yang, Blake and Ruby began pelting the Grimm with ranged attacks, Ruby from her position atop the cliff.**

**The Beowulves were largely shredded by the time Ryu, Troy, Laura, and Natalie turned around, but the Widowmaker was barely slowed. Ryu could see that the giant spider was just going to keep shrugging off the ranged hits, they would need to find a weak spot to attack, and Ryu knew that, with his speed, he was the best one for that job.**

**"****Keep it busy, I'm going to find a chink in it's armor."**

**All three of them objected, but Ryu ran forward, dodging two Beowulves, who were quickly felled by a fireball and an arrow, respectively. A long arachnoid leg nearly crushed Ryu, but he spun out of the way, slashing at the leg and resheathing the instant the blow bounced off of the exoskeleton of the Widowmaker. ****_The legs are armored _****Ryu noted, before leaping onto the spider's head when it leaned down in an attempt to bite him, a quick slice to the back of the head led into a roll down the Widowmaker's back, the giant spider let loose a whistling shriek of pain, ****_there, I found a weak point: the joints_****. Ryu slashed hard at the lowest joint of the back, left leg, Wind's Fang sliced cleanly through the unarmored sliver of flesh, shortening the leg, and causing the monster to stumble.**

**Blake, Pyrrha, Jaune and Troy joined the melee, the rest continued to pelt the monster with shots to keep it off balance, when Ryu saw Blake and Troy fighting side by side he was struck by how similar they looked, and despite their drastically different weapons and fighting styles, they actually ****_moved _****in the same manner as well, with catlike grace, and swift, fluid motions, even their expressions were identical, Ryu wondered if they were related. The fight brought him out of his contemplations as he was forced to leap over a spider leg that nearly impaled him, in midair Ryu performed a technique his Master had taught him, a flurry of quick slashes enhanced by aura to increase the range, Ryu's sword actually made his version of the technique more effective than Adam's, as the Wind Dust in the blade extended his reach out to forty feet. If he had been looking, Ryu would have seen Blake's eyes widen in shock, but the wind samurai was too focused on his target to notice anyone else at that point as the Grimm spider's three undamaged back legs fell in neatly sliced sections. With only it's four front legs supporting it's weight, the Widowmaker collapsed, leaving it helpless as Troy stabbed the spear tip on Eternal Dreams into the joint between one of the front legs, and the torso, finishing the job.**

**Shortly afterwards all twelve hunters in training were gathered at the base of the cliff, since they still had to take their relics back to the other side of the forest, introductions were made, Ryu learned that the hyperactive ginger was called Nora Valkyrie, and her friend in the green tailcoat was Lie Ren, who insisted that people just call him Ren, but they weren't the big show, that started when both Troy and Blake said that their last name was Belladonna.**

**Troy spoke first. "B-Blake? I thought you were dead! We were told that nobody could have survived that attack, the only reason I'm not dead is that Dad managed to get me out while Mom went to look for you, she never came back, and it was revealed afterward that she'd died protecting some children from the Grimm, we just assumed you'd died too."**

**Yang looked from one to the other before asking her partner the question that was on everyone else's mind. "Okay, back up, what happened exactly?"**

**Blake answered, it seemed like she was mostly speaking to Yang, and Troy, ignoring the rest of the group. "Troy and I are twins, we were born outside the Kingdoms, in a small, fortified town. Our parents were both Hunters, the only ones living in the town, they managed to keep everyone safe for a while, but, one day, when we were six, a huge horde of Grimm overran the town, I was visiting my best friend at the time, I remember hearing the sounds of the monsters, and the screams of the townspeople, my friend's mother hid us under a trapdoor, my friend and I, Lissy was her name, she was a human, Lissy and I hid in the panic room her parents had made for keeping their family safe in the event of an attack. We couldn't see anything, but I could still hear everything, Lissy could only hear enough to scare her, after all, she didn't have cat ears like me. She started to cry, so I had to keep her quiet, thanks to our parents I knew that making noise during a Grimm attack was a good way to be found, so I had to reassure her, I didn't do a very good job, probably because I was terrified myself, there we were, two six year old girls locked in an underground vault while our friends and families were being torn to shreds by monsters outside. When we heard her mother screaming, Lissy opened the door and ran out, I managed to pull it mostly closed, and hid there until the it sounded like the monsters had left, then I pushed the door open, and just... walked out of town, the things I saw as I was leaving put me in a state of shock, so I don't really know how long I was wandering around for, but eventually I was found by a group of Faunus who took me in, I learned to fight, and I learned a lot more from them, but when they finally had enough of the treatment we were receiving due to our species, and began to lash out, I left, I didn't want to be a part of pointless violence, but I could fight, and I knew I was good at it, so I decided to help keep the world as safe as possible, and I applied here." Reaching up Blake undid her bow, revealing black cat ears.**

**Yang reached over and grabbed her partner in a one armed hug. "Well! I think that the most important thing is that neither of you died, you're here now, together, I know that if I thought Ruby had died I wouldn't be able to function, but you both got strong and now you'll be able to make up for lost time, it's ****_purr_****fect, eh? Eh?" The atrocious pun broke the serious atmosphere, as everyone groaned, Ruby facepalmed.**

**"****Yang! Did you seriously need to go there?"**

**Yang grinned at her sister. "Of course! What happened to them was horrible, but dwelling on painful memories isn't healthy, it's always best to focus on the positive, little sister."**

**Thirty minutes later, in the auditorium/arena.**

**"****Cardin Winchester, Russel Thrush, Dove Bronzewing, Sky Lark, the four of you collected the black bishop pieces, together you will be known as Team CaRDinaL, led by: Cardin Winchester." Ryu watched the group walk offstage, it may have been a judgment based off of their leader, but he thought that the newly formed team looked like a bunch of thugs, in fact, he realized, they were the same thugs who had been sitting with Cardin during last night's dinner. The next group was called up. "Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, Pyrrha Nikos, Lie Ren, the four of you collected the white rook pieces, together you will be known as Team JuNiPeR, led by: Jaune Arc." The blonde boy looked shocked.**

**"****M-me?!"**

**Ozpin nodded, a small smile on his face. "Congratulations young man."**

**Pyrrha punched Jaune on the shoulder in congratulations, knocking him off his feet to a storm of laughter from the crowd.**

**"****Ryu Kawisaka, Laura Grace, Troy Belladonna, Natalie Duvall, the four of you collected the white bishop pieces, together you will be known as Team ReLaTioN, Led by: Ryu Kawisaka." Ryu was dumbstruck, he was leader? He didn't know what Ozpin was thinking, Ryu was too reckless, too much of a loner to make a good leader, he was about to object, but Ozpin simply looked him in the eyes, Ryu realized that Ozpin was aware of his flaws, but he had made the decision to appoint Ryu leader anyway, objecting wouldn't change his mind in the least, so the newly appointed leader of Team RLTN closed his mouth and nodded to the headmaster.**

**"****Lastly, Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long, the four of you collected the white knight pieces, together you will be known as Team RWBY (ruby), led by: Ruby Rose." Weiss Schnee looked like she'd been slapped, while Ruby looked shocked, Yang however let out a joyful shout.**

**"****Ohhh! I'm so proud of you!" And hugged Ruby tight enough to cut off her breathing.**

**Ozpin looked amused as he watched the scene. "This promises to be an... Interesting year." The headmaster commented.**

* * *

**(Author's Note: So... Ryu is the leader of team RLTN, I considered each member for the leader, Natalie was out, she's mute, physically incapable of speech rather than just silent by choice, a team leader needs to be able to communicate to their teammates in battle, and she couldn't do that effectively, Troy isn't very responsible, unlike his sister who dealt with their childhood trauma by retreating into books and becoming withdrawn and antisocial, Troy went the opposite way, he's loud, impulsive, and kind of like a male Yang without the bad puns, and much less reliable, Laura looked good, but she just doesn't strike me as a leader, I mean, she doesn't have her teammates' flaws, she can speak, is fairly responsible, and isn't subconsciously suicidal, but I finally settled on Ryu because he was the one who would experience the most growth with the added challenge of responsibility.)**


	5. Chapter 5

Day 2: part three: Shared History

Ryu was sitting on the roof of the dormitory,looking at the stars always cleared his head, and he had a lot on his mind, not least of which his appointment to leader.

"Ryu... I need to talk to you about something." Blake had approached the distracted samurai silently, causing him to jump violently, she had taken to wearing her bow behind her cat ears, it was pretty pointless to hide them, since everyone had seen Troy's ears, and the two of them were clearly siblings.

"Blake! You should try not to sneak up on people, I thought I was going to have a heart attack!"

The ninja cat girl smirked. "Sorry about that, but I need to ask you some questions."

"Okay... shoot."

"Do you know a man named Adam Taurus?"

Realization dawned on Ryu. "You were a member of the White Fang." It wasn't a question.

Blake paled, but nodded. "Yes, they were the ones who found me, they took me in, and I spent eight years with them, but five years ago, the peaceful leader stepped down, and a new leader took his place, soon our peaceful protests were replaced by armed attacks, and I just couldn't use my skills to hurt people, so I left."

"How did you know Adam? And what made you think I did?" Ryu asked.

"That move, the 'hurricane strike' he called it, you used one of Adam's favorite attacks when you crippled the Widowmaker."

Ryu nodded, a small smile forming at the memory that she had just called to his mind. "I should know it, I was the one who gave it that name, Adam was my teacher from when he found me nearly dead and the only thing I could remember was my name, at the age of six, well, we think I was six, kinda hard to tell, what with the amnesia, until I was thirteen. Adam and his wife took me in and raised me, he taught me how to fight, he helped me make my sword when I was eleven. He and Serenity, his wife, are the closest thing to parents I can remember having."

"But... You're human." Blake pointed out.

"Adam didn't always hate humans, he used to be a Huntsman, his wife was someone he'd met between missions, she was human too. For seven years we were happy, then, while Adam was on a mission, and I was out in the backyard, practicing, a man broke in and killed Serenity, I heard her scream, and ran in to see him stab her through the heart, calling her a treacherous animal lover. I snapped, I don't actually remember exactly what I did, I sort of blanked out, but when I came to my senses, I had Wind's Fang in my hand, the entire room was bathed in blood, and the man was so mangled that his own mother wouldn't have recognized him, I'd used my Semblance for the first time that day, I'd done all that damage in under a minute. I have no idea how long I stood there, but it must have been several hours, because when Adam came through the door it was dark, he saw the room, his wife's corpse, and the mangled wreck that used to be her attacker, and me, standing there, blood covering me from head to toe, he cleaned me off, gave me a Scroll with instructional data on various Iaido techniques that he'd developed, and a pack with the basics: money, some food and water, and a bedroll, then he kicked me out and told me to keep training until I was old enough to enter Beacon, his eyes always stand out to me when I remember that night, they were empty of all emotion, like everything that made him, _him_ was lying dead in that room. I learned later that he'd joined the White Fang, which I suppose was the reason he didn't even try to keep me with him, as a human I would never have survived if he'd brought me with him. So... how did you know him?"

Blake looked thoughtful. "He was my partner for a full year before I left, he taught me a lot about fighting, but sometimes he scared me a little, he hates humans with an intensity I only saw in a handful of others, I guess now I know why."

"Yeah... So, are you going to tell your team any of this?"

"No... not yet, I don't think it would be a good idea."

"Yeah... I guess it's too soon for that, well, don't worry, I won't tell until you give me permission, but Blake..."

"Yes?"

"Don't keep it from them forever, that's a pretty good way to lose their trust if they find out from someone else."

Blake nodded, then left. Ryu sat for another ten minutes, before returning to his team's dorm.

(Author's note: I revealed a lot in these last two chapters that in the show was revealed much later, but as only Ryu and Blake know about her past affiliations that revelation to Team RWBY should still have impact, and won't disrupt the story too much, also, the main reason Blake decided to come out as a Faunus was, as I said, Troy, she'd basically gotten her twin brother back from the dead, there's no way in hell she'd deny their relationship just to hide her species, though she still hasn't said anything about the White Fang, and won't for a while, also, at this point she just wears the bow because she likes it.)


	6. Chapter 6

**Day Three, Part one: Classes and conflict**

**Ryu woke at five thirty in a cold sweat, the talk he'd had with Blake the night before had stirred old memories, his dreams that night had been full of blood and death. Looking around he saw his team fast asleep, Troy had kicked off his sheets, a grimace crossed the normally cheerful Faunus' sleeping face, clearly Ryu wasn't the only one with bad dreams, Laura was sleeping peacefully, Natalie was snoring, for someone who couldn't (or didn't) talk she was very loud in sleep.**

**Ryu went through his morning exercises, and by the time he was done Troy had woken up.**

**"****G'morning fearless leader, you know, when I saw you up yesterday morning I didn't think you were such an early riser." The cat faunus' hair was disheveled, his skin was pale, his cat ears drooped, and he had bags under his eyes, clearly he wasn't a morning person.**

**"****I woke up at five thirty, it's just a habit I picked up during my training, my body adjusted to waking up early, and now I wake up before six every morning." Ryu shrugged.**

**"****Man, that sucks, I need coffee at this ungodly hour." And with that the combat specialist reached into his trunk, which he'd stored under his bed, and pulled out a coffee maker and a pair of mugs, replacing one after Ryu declined the offered mug. The girls woke to the scent of coffee brewing, Troy passed both of them steaming mugs, which they accepted with gratitude.**

**Ryu addressed the others. "Alright team, we might as well get started on unpacking, organizing our stuff, and decorating our spaces, the bed you slept in last night is yours, the area immediately around your bed is yours to use as you see fit, so let's get to it."**

**The four members of RLTN went to work on their room, Ryu hung his sword above the headboard of his bed, under a stylized scroll painting of a mountain. Troy tacked up a band poster for ****_two thousand foot kane_****, Natalie put about a dozen books in the small bookshelf under the window, while Laura hung up a picture of a younger version of herself, and a smiling red haired woman in a park, there was a large tear in the photo where whoever had been next to the woman was torn out of the photo. Standing back the four trainees looked at the room in satisfaction.**

**"****Okay team, time to get into our uniforms, they're in the closet, Troy, we're going to change in the guy's showers down the hall, Laura and Natalie can change here, then we'll meet and go over class schedules." Ryu told his team. Team RLTN got down to business.**

**Fifteen minutes later they were all dressed, the boys in a gold lined black suit, black pants, a blue vest, white dress shirt, and red tie, Troy had kept his goggles. The girls wore a brown jacket, tan vest, white shirt, and a red plaid skirt, Natalie had worn the long brown stockings supplied with the uniform, Laura had opted for socks.**

**"****We have six classes today, at nine, all four of us have Team Tactics with Professor Goodwitch. At 10:30 Troy and I have weapon design with Professor Redbark. Natalie, and Laura, you have Marksmanship with Professor Hood. Lunch is at twelve, and at 12:20 the four of us have History of Remnant with Dr. Oobleck. At two o'clock we each split up, I've got Leadership class, Troy and Laura are going to Basics of Wilderness survival, and Natalie, you have Supplementary Melee Combat, then at three thirty Troy and Laura have Scouting Class, and Natalie and I have Stealth Basics, then we meet up again for Grimm Studies with Professor Port at five, then, apparently we have until curfew at eight to ourselves, everyone got that?"**

**Troy raised his hand. "Yeah, where are these classes?" Ryu wrote the directions supplied on the schedule on to three pieces of paper, and handed them to his teammates.**

**"****Here, it looks like the first schedule gives some directions, I suspect that we'll have to find our classes ourselves from tomorrow onward. It's eight thirty now, so let's go to class."**

**Team tactics was a demanding start to the day, Professor Goodwitch was a stern teacher, intolerant of messing around, and possessed an eagle eye when it came to spotting trouble, she gave the entirety of Team CRDL detention within the first fifteen minutes for whispering insults to a white eared, red haired, and apparently, extremely shy cat Faunus, the poor girl could barely stammer her thanks, but Professor Goodwitch just gave her a nod, then returned to her lecture as if nothing had happened. **

**Ryu and Troy had Weapon Design with Ruby, as well as Pyrrha and her green clad teammate Ren, Ruby spent most of the class fawning over the various weapons the students had presented for examination, much to everyone else's amusement, after class Ryu, Troy, Ruby, Pyrrha, and Ren all headed for lunch, apparently teams RWBY, JNPR, and RLTN had the same lunch.**

**"****So... Ryu, the last time we saw each other was a year ago, where've you been?" Pyrrha asked once the members of all three teams were seated.**

**Ryu shrugged. "I was training, practicing the techniques that Master Adam left me, inventing a couple new ones, and hunting down the occasional Grimm."**

**"****Then why didn't you answer any of my calls?" The red haired Spartan asked.**

**"****I was living in a remote village well outside of the Kingdoms, they didn't have a communications tower for over two thousand miles, I didn't receive any communications at all."**

**Yang was the first to ask the question on everyone's mind. "How do the two of you know each other?"**

**Ryu smirked. "She kicked my ass in the last Mistral Regional Tournament."**

**"****Oh, it wasn't like that! You got pretty close to beating me at one point." Pyrrha reassured, but Ryu wasn't buying it.**

**"****Our match was one of the closest she's ever fought in the Mistral Regional, and I only managed to get her down to forty percent aura, at the end mine was at nine percent, you kicked my ass, no way around it Pyrrha, though I was perfectly happy accept second place."**

**Ren started, looking closely at Ryu's face. "Wait, second place in the last Mistral Regional, ****_you're _****Ryu the Wind Samurai? That fight leveled a quarter of the arena! Nora and I were in the stands, we had to keep moving to avoid falling debris." At this both Pyrrha and Ryu turned bright red with embarrassment as their friends looked at them with various degrees of shock.**

**"****Sorry about that." Both embarrassed warriors mumbled.**

**"****Eh... Don't worry about it, it was an amazing fight! I've never seen anyone go all out like that! Ren and I even got a refund from the tournament board, they were worried that someone would sue them for improperly employed safety measures or something, we used the money to buy pancakes afterwards!" Nora exclaimed.**

**Yang grinned. "Well, if you two are really that tough I kinda want to fight one of you sometime, maybe you, Breezy."**

**"****Breezy? What happened to Samurai Boy?" Ryu asked.**

**"Well, y****ou're famous for using Wind Dust, so: Breezy."**

**Ryu sighed. "I suppose it's too much to ask you to stop giving me weird nicknames?"**

**"****I suppose it is." Yang answered, a grin rapidly taking shape on her face. Ryu idly wondered how a smile could make a person feel lightheaded, and scared, at the same time.**

**Weiss was the only one not taking part in any conversation, though she occasionally shot dirty looks at her leader, who was animatedly discussing weapon mechanics with Troy, who was curious about how she'd made Crescent Rose. Natalie noticed, the silent girl wondered why the heiress seemed to be upset with her leader, from the little Natalie had seen of the younger girl, she seemed friendly, if a bit immature and unsure of herself, she was probably nervous about being the leader of her own team. The silent sniper shrugged, it wasn't her business, whatever problems the white haired heiress had with her leader would need to be resolved between the two of them.**

**The last class of the day, Grimm Studies, was the only one that teams RWBY, JNPR, and RLTN had together, the teacher, Professor Peter Port, was an older man with an impressive mustache, huge eyebrows, and a potbelly. Team RWBY sat in the front, JNPR took the seats behind them, and RLTN sat next to them, there was a covered boxlike object in the corner that occasionally let out rattles and grunts.**

**"****Monsters! Deeemons! Prowlers of the night! Yes the creatures of Grimm have many names, but I merely refer to them as prey!" The professor waited a second for the students to laugh at his joke, no one did, so he continued. "Uuhh... And you shall too, upon graduating from this prestigious academy, as I was saying, Vale, as well as the other three Kingdoms, are safe havens in an otherwise treacherous world. Our planet is absolutely ****_teeming_****with creatures that would love nothing more than to tear you to pieces, and that's where we come in, Huntsmen! Huntresses!" He winked at Yang, who shuddered. "Individuals who have sworn to protect those who cannot protect themselves! From what, you ask? Why, the very world!"**

**"****AYY YEP!" A student near the back yelled, before realizing that nobody else was as excited as he was and sitting down with an embarrassed expression, professor Port resumed his speech.**

**"****That is what you are training to become! But first, a story!" Ryu thought he knew where this was going, Professor Port confirmed his suspicions a second later.**

**"****A tale of a young, handsome man: Me!" At this, Ryu, and nearly everyone else lost interest immediately, Ryu began taking notes of the highly detailed and annotated drawings of various Grimm on the whiteboard behind the instructor, and watching Ruby mess around, first she drew a somewhat childish drawing of their teacher with stink lines coming off of him, entitled 'Professor Poop', this caused Blake and Yang to laugh quietly, but Weiss simply looked annoyed, this annoyance increased when Ruby started balancing an apple and a book on a pencil, which Ryu thought was actually kind of impressive, even if it wasn't what they were supposed to be doing, Ryu was a little startled when she suddenly fell asleep, ****_how does she do that? _****He wondered before noting that Ruby's partner was starting to get mad, she finally blew her top when Ruby woke up and started picking her nose.**

**Professor Port, oblivious to what his students were doing began to extol the virtues of a 'true Huntsman'. "A true huntsman must be honorable! A true Huntsman must be dependable! A true huntsman must be strategic, well educated, and wise! Now, who among you believes themselves to be the embodiment of these traits?"**

**"****I do sir!" Weiss Schnee yelled, having lost her composure due to her partner's antics.**

**"****Well then, let's find out! Step forward, and face your opponent! Er... Once you've equipped yourself, you are excused to the lockers to retrieve your equipment, Miss Schnee."**

**Ten minutes later, Weiss was back, she wore her combat outfit, with her rapier, Myrtenaster, sheathed at her waist.**

**As she stood before the cage her teammates called encouragement to her.**

**"****Goooo, Weiss!" Yang yelled.**

**"****Fight well!" Blake said, while waving a little RWBY flag, ****_where in the world did she get that? _****Ryu wondered, but his thoughts were interrupted by Ruby's cry.**

**"****Yeah! Represent Team RWBY!"**

**"****Ruby! I'm trying to focus!" Weiss yelled at her leader, who immediately apologized. Ryu wondered why she hadn't told off any of her other teammates, if anything Yang had been the most disruptive, but Weiss had singled out Ruby.**

**"****Alright! Let the match, BEGIN!" Professor Port lifted his weapon, a strange fusion of a blunderbuss and a two headed battleaxe, and brought it down on the lock of the uncovered cage, the door fell to reveal a Boarbatusk, a boar-like Grimm with four burning orange eyes, huge curved tusks, and boney plates all over it's back. The pig monster charged straight for the young Huntress in training that stood in front of it, but Weiss easily sidestepped and slashed at the creature's armored back, which did absolutely nothing.**

**"****Haha! Wasn't expecting that, were you?" Professor Port exclaimed.**

**"****Hang in there Weiss!" Ruby called, trying to cheer her partner on.**

**Weiss used a Glyph that sent her skating straight at the Boarbatusk, but the monster swung it's tusks and entangled Weiss' rapier blade, they wrestled for a short time, but Weiss was distracted by Ruby shouting encouragement, and with a short twist Myrtenaster was sent skittering across the floor.**

**"****Ohoo! Now what will you do without your weapon!" Professor Port seemed to be enjoying this fight a bit too much in Ryu's opinion.**

**Weiss, who had been thrown to the ground when she'd been disarmed, looked up to see the Boarbatusk bearing down on her, at the last second she dived out of the way, causing the monster to hit the divider between the teaching area and the seats, and bounce off, landing on it's back, and revealing it's unarmored underside. Weiss used the time it took for the Boarbatusk to flip itself over to run and scoop up Myrtenaster.**

**Ruby chose that moment to call out. "Weiss! Go for it's belly! There's no armor underneath!"**

**"****Stop telling me what to do!" The heiress snapped, causing the younger girl to shrink back, hurt. The Boabatusk leapt into the air, curled up, and began to rotate like a tire, when it hit the ground it's rotation launched it at it's opponent, who, rather than dodge, created a blue Glyph in the air like a shield between herself and the monster, who hit the Glyph at high speeds and bounced off, landing on it's back, stunned. A second blue glyph launched the heiress into the air, where a black Glyph held her briefly in place, before it turned blue and launched her, sword point first at the monster, who died with Myrtenaster buried hilt deep in it's stomach.**

**"****Bravo, it seems we are indeed in the presence of a true Huntress in training!" Professor Port congratulated. "I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today, be sure to cover the assigned readings, and, stay vigilant! Class dismissed."**

**"****Sheesh, what's with her?" Jaune asked after Weiss stalked off.**

**Natalie tapped Ryu on the shoulder, he turned and she held up her notebook, she'd written: ****_Do you plan on doing anything about Ruby and Weiss?_****Ryu shook his head.**

**"****If one of them says something to me I'll give them advice, but this looks like something that they need to work out for themselves." The orange eyed girl smiled and wrote: ****_Good, those two need to work out their issues to become a better team, and for Ruby to become a better leader, but if one of your friends asks for it you should help them. You're doing alright as a leader yourself, you know._**

**"****It's that obvious that I have no idea what I'm doing?"**

**_No, but it was pretty obvious that you're unsure of yourself, don't be, you're doing fine. _****Then Natalie walked off. Ryu went and got Wind's Fang from his locker, changed into his combat clothes, and headed to the training grounds.**

**Day three, Part: 2 Ruby**

**Ruby walked out of Professor Port's class feeling confused and dejected, ****_why was Weiss being so mean? I thought she was going to try to work with me? Did I do something wrong? _****Spotting the heiress in question, Ruby picked up her pace to catch up to her partner.**

**"****Weiss!"**

**"****What?" The irritated older girl replied.**

**"****What's wrong with you? Why are you being..."**

**"****What's wrong with me?" Weiss interrupted. "What's wrong with ****_you_****? You're supposed to be a leader, and all you've been so far is a nuisance!"**

**"****What did I do?"**

**"****That just it! You've done ****_nothing _****to earn your position, back in the forest you acted like a child! And you've only continued to do so!"**

**"****Where's this coming from? What happened to all the talk about working together, I thought you believed in acting as a team?" Ruby pleaded.**

**"****Not a team led by you... ****_I've _****studied, and trained... And quite frankly, I deserve better, Ozpin made a mistake!" Weiss walked off, leaving behind a hurt and saddened partner.**

**Head hung, and shoulders drooping, Ruby turned, and almost ran into the headmaster himself.**

**"****Hmm... Now, that didn't seem to go very well." Professor Ozin commented.**

**"****Is she right? Did you make a mistake?"**

**"****That remains to be seen." Ozpin answered, a laugh entering his voice.**

**"****What do you mean?"**

**"****I mean it's only been one day, Ruby, I've made more mistakes than any man, woman, or child on this planet, but at this moment I would not consider your appointment to leader to be one of them, do you? Being a team leader isn't just a title you carry into battle, but a badge you wear constantly, if you are not performing at your absolute best, then what reason do you give others to follow you?" Ozpin turned away before resuming. "You've been burdened with a daunting responsibility, Ruby, I advise you to take some time, to think about how you will uphold it."**

**Day three, part: 2.1 Weiss**

**After leaving behind her incompetent leader with something to think about, Weiss walked onto the large balcony that overlooked the courtyard, Professor Port was standing at the railing, looking at the sunset.**

**"****Professor Port!" Weiss approached the teacher, who turned to face his student.**

**"****Ah! Miss Schnee, to what do I owe this fine pleasure?"**

**"****I-I enjoyed your lecture."**

**"****Of course you did child, you have the blood of a true Huntress in you!"**

**"****You really think so?"**

**"****Most surely!" Professor Port exclaimed, then he noticed her smile fade.**

**"****Something's troubling you?"**

**"****Yes, sir."**

**"****Dear girl, confess to me your strife!"**

**"****Well... I... I think I should have been the leader of team RWBY!"**

**"****That's preposterous!"**

**Offended now, Weiss exclaimed. "Excuse me!"**

**"****I've believed in Professor Ozpin for many years, and the man's never once led me astray."**

**"****So you would just blindly accept his decision, even after seeing how exceptional I am!?"**

**"****With all due respect, your exceptional skill on the battlefield is matched only by your poor attitude."**

**"****How dare you!"**

**"****My point exactly. I see a girl before me who has spent her entire life getting exactly what she wanted."**

**"****That's not even remotely true!"**

**Professor Port raised an eyebrow.**

**"****Well... Not ****_entirely _****true."**

**The elderly professor pressed on. "So the outcome did not fall in your favor, do you really believe that acting in such a manner would cause those in power to reconsider their decision? So instead of fretting about what you don't have, savor what you ****_do_****. Hone your skills, perfect every technique, and be not the best leader, but the best person you can be."**

**Day three, part: 2.2 Ryu**

**Ryu had been practising by himself for thirty minutes, when Weiss walked into the training room, a thoughtful expression on her face. Ryu continued slashing at the training dummy, keeping one eye on the white haired duelist, after beheading the dummy Ryu turned to watch Weiss, she had her own training dummy, the heiress stood, one foot forward, sword held in one hand straight in front of her in a fencer's ready position, before bringing her arm up, turning it so that Myrtenaster was pointing straight at the dummy.**

**"****You take too long to line up your first strike." Ryu's voice broke Weiss' concentration, and she stumbled before shooting a dirty look at the wind samurai.**

**"****Also, you're too intensely focused, when something distracts you, you tend to mess up whatever you're doing."**

**"****Anything ****_else _****wrong with how I fight?" The proud heiress snapped.**

**"****Your fighting style focuses far too much on single combat, and you apparently can't take constructive criticism well, I'm willing to help you work on those problems if you want."**

**"****First: Why would I want to train with you? My fighting is already exceptional."**

**"****Yes, it is... If you're fighting one opponent, or have a team around you that can cover your weaknesses."**

**Weiss ignored the interruption. "Second: Why do you care? We've barely interacted at all, and half of that was antagonistic."**

**"****First: I offered because, not only is your teammate my partner's twin sister, I'm friends with Ruby and Yang, so we'll likely spend a lot of time in proximity to each other, and I'd prefer for us not to constantly be at eachothers' throats, so it would be good if we could mend our initial impressions of each other, and at the very least remain civil. Second: Eventually you and I are going to be fighting together, so I'd honestly like to improve both of our chances of surviving by not only addressing the weaknesses in your fight style, and improving on your strengths, but also giving myself an able sparring partner, someone skilled enough to allow me to grow in skill as well."**

**Weiss blinked. "That was... Very logical of you."**

**"****I figured that the logical approach would be more effective, we don't know each other well enough for any other approach anyway, so... What do you say?"**

**"****Fine, sparring with an actual person is more effective than stabbing training dummies anyway."**

**"****Well then, why don't we start now."**

**At seven fifty five Ryu stumbled into his team's dorm room, three doors down Weiss was doing the same thing at Team RWBY's room, they had worked for nearly two and a half hours, in single combat the young heiress was an impressive force, Ryu felt like they'd both grown from the experience. Troy was waiting for Ryu when he came in.**

**"****Sooo, partner, where've you been? You look like you recently fought a small army."**

**"****I was training with Weiss."**

**"****Schnee? I would have thought you'd rather train with Yang." Troy said with an evil grin.**

**"****What are you talking about?"**

**"****Oh, come on, I've seen how you look at her, just ask her out man."**

**Ryu turned red. "I'm not in love with Yang!"**

**Troy just smiled. clearly saying without words, ****_keep telling yourself that_****.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Day 19, part: 1 the boxer and the samurai**

**As always Ryu woke up before his team, a quick look at the clock showed three thirty, the tired samurai groaned, he'd stayed up till eleven working on a paper for Professor Goodwitch, Ryu may have been used to getting little sleep, but that didn't mean he was immune to the effects of insufficient sleep, to make matters worse, now that he was awake, it would be impossible to go back to sleep. Ryu began his morning routine, when he finished his exercises he got back to working on the paper. By seven he was finished, and it was time to wake his team.**

**"****All right! up and at'em team. Time to get up!" Slowly the rest of Team RLTN.**

**"****I don't get why we have to wake up two whole hours before class starts." Laura complained.**

**"****It's so you'll get used to waking up early in the field, before we actually have to put it into practice, I'm going easy on you here."**

**Troy, who, as always woke up looking like an extremely rumpled cat, voiced his complaint. "How is waking us up early taking it easy on us?"**

**Ryu grinned. "I could do what my Master did to me, and wake you up at the crack of dawn. I'm perfectly willing to do it too, so, any other complaints?" Nobody answered.**

**After they'd showered and changed into their uniforms, and Troy and the girls had had their coffee, Ryu led his team to the courtyard, where he had them working on any unfinished schoolwork, of course, he was doing the same thing. They studied until eight forty-five, before they headed to their first classes.**

**The second class of the day was one that Teams RLTN, RWBY, and JNPR had together, Combat class with Professor Goodwitch, the first match involved no one that Ryu knew, so he just watched to observe possible future opponents, when that match ended the second one was called.**

**"****Ryu Kawisaka, of Team RLTN versus Yang Xiao Long of Team RWBY." Ryu looked over at Yang, she was grinning. Ryu began formulating strategies in his head, they'd both seen each other fight, Ryu had been impressed by her skill, her fighting style was based off kickboxing, though she was slightly more reliant on her fists, as they were covered by her weapons, a pair of golden shot-gauntlets named Ember Celica, while she was nowhere near as fast as he was her reflexes were phenomenal, her strength, which was impressive unaided became something incredible with the added force of her gauntlets' built in fire dust shotguns. Standing across from his opponent, Ryu crouched, his right hand hovering above the hilt of Wind's Fang, a smile began to form on his face as anticipation set in, he would have to use techniques he hadn't put to use since his fight with Pyrrha.**

**"****No holding back on me Breezy." Yang held her fists up in a boxer's stance.**

**"****Wouldn't dream of it, Yang, make sure you return the favor, I want this to be a good fight."**

**"****Begin!" Professor Goodwitch called.**

**Firing both of her gauntlets behind her Yang rocketed towards Ryu, who dived out of the way, and rolled to his feet, facing Yang who was making another shotgun boosted charge, this time, however, Ryu ducked under the right hook, and unsheathed his sword into his slash, a metallic clang told Ryu that Yang had gotten her left gauntlet in between his sword and her body, but the force of the blow still sent her skidding backward, Yang's hair began to flicker with golden flames, Ryu activated his own aura, his body began softly glowing green, he could feel his body lighten, his senses sharpen, and his reflexes increase. Both fighters charged, sword and fist flashed out, both connected, and both auras prevented serious damage from being inflicted. Ryu leapt back, sheathing his sword. The wind samurai began focusing his aura into Wind's Fang, but unlike with the wind slash, Ryu immediately began shaping how the wind would manifest, when he was finished, two seconds later, a green glow was emanating from the sheathed blade, activating his Semblance briefly Ryu dodged Yang's first strike, then he slashed out, but Yang, who had learned from the first time he did this, clamped her hand onto his shoulder, and used his body as a balancing beam, lifting herself above the slash, or, she would have, if a miniature tornado hadn't formed around the blade the instant it left the sheath, the dense wind funnel caught one of her feet and threw her across the room. Yang's reflexes saved her again, her right hand literally punched into the floor, halting her momentum completely, Ryu went on the offensive, dashing across the arena floor, he started to slash, but Yang's fist slammed into his face before his sword left the sheath, the punch, and resulting shogun blast sent Ryu, who had just barely managed to push off the ground in time, flying. Ryu stabbed Wind's Fang into the ground, skidding to a halt, and leaving a gouge in the floor five feet long. A quick glance at his Scroll showed him at forty-five percent aura, Yang at seventy, Ryu opened his belt pouch, and pulled out a small vial full of wind Dust. The Dust began glowing green as Ryu activated it, and began to shape it's results into what he wanted, when Yang, who had launched herself on a third gauntlet boosted charge, was within five feet, Ryu smashed the vial on the ground, the resulting windstorm halted the blonde brawler for a second in midair, long enough for Ryu, who had activated his Semblance, to slash her across the torso, then, when she was sent flying he followed, landing another hit as the windstorm, and Ryu's Semblance, cut out at the same time. Staggering slightly, both fighters prepared for the final exchange, Yang's eyes turned blood red, and the flames in her hair shifted from gold, to nearly white, white flames began flickering around Ember Celica, while Ryu sheathed Wind's Fang and began recreating the tornado blade, green light spilled from the mouth of the sheath, and Ryu's eyes began to glow green themselves. Not holding anything back, both fighters charged, Ryu practically disappeared, he was moving so fast, and Yang threw out a straight left, both fighters' attacks hit, and such was the force of both strikes that both Ryu and Yang were launched backwards, their auras hitting red at the exact same time.**

**Ryu woke up in the infirmary, unsurprisingly he was in a lot of pain, his left arm looked burned, his chest was bandaged, and he had a massive headache. Slowly, so as not to make his headache worse, Ryu turned his head to see Yang in the other bed, apparently asleep, or unconscious, it was hard to tell, her hospital gown hung off her left shoulder, which was heavily bandaged, there were several cuts and abrasions on her face and arms, and a bit of dried blood on the corner of her mouth, Ryu imagined he didn't look much better, probably worse. Yang stirred, then her eyes opened.**

**"****Looks like we really did a number on each other, huh, Yang?"**

**"****Ow! Feels like it too. So... Who won?"**

**"****I think it was a tie, but we'll have to ask someone, because I blacked out pretty quickly."**

**One of the school nurses walked in. "Oh, good. You're both awake, I hear you did this to each other during combat practice, well let this be a lesson about going all out during practice, I'd better not see the two of you again like this." The nurse was pushing a cart with two plates of food, which she passed to the two patients. "Here, eat up. Your auras will heal you eventually, but you need food in you for that to happen, it's past dinner time, but I was able to get two plates from the school's cafeteria."**

**"****Could you tell us what time it is, please?" Ryu asked.**

**"****Ten o'clock at night, your teams and Team JNPR have been visiting every chance they got, I had to kick your sister out an hour ago, Miss Xiao Long, she wanted to stay until you woke up, but I'd already let her stay an hour past curfew, any more and we both would have been in trouble." Yang smiled at the actions of her little sister.**

**When the nurse had walked out, and their meals were finished, Yang looked over at Ryu. "You okay?"**

**"****I've been better, your attacks really pack a punch."**

**Yang grinned. "Hah! I knew I could get you cracking jokes eventually."**

**Ryu flopped onto his pillow. "Oh crap, I'm turning into you."**

**Yang looked thoughtful. "No... You're still you, you've just gained a sense of humor."**

**"****Trust me Yang, your idea of a sense of humor isn't something to be proud of."**

**"****Pish, you're just jealous that you don't have my wit and sparkling personality."**

**This caused Ryu to burst into laughter, at least until a sharp pain in his side made him stop and curl into a ball.**

**Yang looked concerned. "Ryu? Are you okay?"**

**"****Fine, it just hurts when I laugh. Let's get some sleep, okay?"**

**"'****Night Samurai Boy."**

**"****Goodnight Yang."**

* * *

**(Author's note: Day nineteen part two is taking too long to write, so I'm just going to give you guys part one, hope you like Ryu and Yang's fight. enjoy, and please comment!)**


	8. Chapter 8

Day 19, part two: Pyrrha: Bullies

Pyrrha watched Cardin mop the floor with Jaune, it made her concerned whenever she watched her leader lose a sparring match, it always made him doubt himself even more than usual. Pyrrha hated seeing him like that, she knew he could be an excellent leader, the problem was getting _him_ to see it, however Jaune was convinced that he was only dragging his team down, it frustrated Pyrrha to no end. The red haired amazon's thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of her dejected partner, Pyrrha, ever the caretaker, reached up and put a comforting hand on her friend's arm.

"Don't worry Jaune, you'll get better, that's why we're here afterall, to become stronger, and I know you can do it."

Jaune looked down at his seated partner. "Thanks, Pyrrha." But Pyrrha could see in his eyes that he was unconvinced.

Jaune sat next to his partner for the rest of the scheduled sparring matches, unaware of her mind whirring with ideas for getting Jaune to believe in himself, Pyrrha liked Jaune, she had since they'd first met, and for the first time since her third tournament win, and her face going on those disgusting pumpkin marshmallow cereal boxes, he _hadn't known who she was!_ Once they became partners, and she'd gotten to know him, she liked him even more, he was kind, funny, a little goofy, and he was very brave when the situation called for him to be, so when he got like he was now: lost in despair, Pyrrha wanted to help him, she wanted to cheer him up, and bring back the usual spring in his step, she just had no idea how to accomplish her goal.

After class, Laura from team RLTN approached Pyrrha and Jaune as they were leaving the classroom.

"Hey, Jaune, I hope you don't mind me borrowing your partner for a moment, Pyrrha and I need to talk." Then, without waiting for either of them to answer, she took her fellow redhead by the arm and led her away from the blond knight.

"Pyrrha, what do you feel about Jaune?"

Pyrrha could feel her face burning. "W-what?"

"What are your feelings towards Jaune, it's not a difficult question."

One thing Pyrrha had learned over their nearly three weeks of interaction was that Laura wouldn't know subtlety if it hit her on the head.

"I-I respect his courage, his drive, I think he's an excellent leader..."

"Not what I asked, I didn't ask what you _thought_ of him, I asked how you _felt_ about him."

Pyrrha's answer was barely audible. "I like him."

"Sorry, I didn't quite hear that."

"I like him, alot."

A smile broke across Laura's face. "There! You really shouldn't keep that sort of stuff bottled up like you have been, now... What do you plan on doing to help him get strong enough to actually survive the next four years, and when are you going to ask him out, or get him to ask you out?"

Thankfully Jaune called over, freeing Pyrrha from having to answer.

"Hey, Pyrrha and Laura, we should go to lunch now, you can continue your conversation on the way."

"Think about it Pyrrha." Laura walked off to lunch, Pyrrha followed.

During lunch Nora launched into one of her stories.

"There we were, in the middle of the night." The bubbly grenadier was trying to sound dramatic, but the effect was ruined when Ren interjected in a bored voice.

"It was day."

"We were surrounded by Ursi."

"They were Beowulves."

"DOZENS OF THEM!"

"Two of them."

"But Ren and I killed them all and made a boatload of lien selling Ursa skin rugs!" Nora finished.

"She's been having this recurring dream for about a month now." Ren explained.

Pyrrha couldn't help feel jealous of the bond those two shared, she would give almost anything to have that kind of connection to _her_ partner, but Jaune never shared his dreams with her, in fact, sometimes, the more discouraged he got, the less he would interact with her at all.

Speaking of her partner... Jaune hadn't eaten anything, he was just absently playing with his food, Pyrrha had to do something.

"Jaune, are you okay?"

Jaune's head snapped up. "Huh? Oh, yeah, why?"

Ruby spoke up. "Because you seem a little..." She fished around for the right word, before giving up and just going with "..._not_ okay."

Jaune gave a thumbs up, and an unconvincing smile. "Guys! I'm fine, look!"

Cardin's voice broke through the conversation, and everyone turned to see him and his team of cronies harassing a brown haired girl with long brown rabbit ears sticking up from the top of her head.

Pyrrha spoke to her partner. "Jaune, Cardin's been picking on you since the first week of school."

"Cardin Winchester? Nah, he just likes messing around! You know, practical jokes."

"He's a bully." Ruby corrected.

"Oh please, name one time he's _bullied _me!"

Laura spoke up. "He knocks your books out of your hands every chance he gets."

Ren added his two cents. "He triggered your shield open and got you stuck in that doorway four days ago."

Even Natalie held up a notepad with her example. _He shoved you into a rocket locker and sent you flying into the Emerald Forest._

"I didn't land too far from the school!" Jaune insisted.

"If you ever need help, all you have to do is ask." Pyrrha offered.

"Oooh! We'll break his legs!" Nora yelled. Everyone but Ren scooted a little further away from the hyperactive hammer wielder.

"Guys, really, it's fine! Besides, it's not like he's just a jerk to _me_, he's a jerk to everyone."

"Yeah, like that makes it any better." Laura retorted.

"OW, that hurts! Please stop!" The rabbit faunus girl who was being harassed by Team CRDL yelled, Cardin had begun tugging on one of her rabbit ears.

Cardin turned to his cronies. "See, I told you it was real."

"What a freak." Russel Thrush, the skinny knife fighter of Team CRDL crowed.

Cardin let go, and the girl ran off, covering her face in humiliation, near the door, she ran into three people who had just entered the lunchroom, they were apparently the rest of her team, as the two boys, one, slight with dark brown skin, the other a massive tan boy, held back a girl in a black beret from running over and attacking Cardin, though they were clearly not happy with it either.

"Atrocious! I can't stand people like them." Pyrrha said darkly, still looking at Team CRDL.

"They're not the only ones." Blake assured Pyrrha. Jaune got up and left the lunchroom.

Day 19, part 2.1: Pyrrha: History

Dr. Bartholomew Oobleck was the only person Pyrrha knew who drank more coffee than Professor Ozpin, who was never seen without his seemingly bottomless coffee mug, Dr. Oobleck never stopped moving, at speeds that would rival Ruby or Ryu's Semblance boosted speed, he alway spoke as if set on fast forward, and he was constantly sipping from a coffee mug, which he would occasionally refill using the thermos on his desk, he even dressed as if he'd rushed through it, he wore his shirt half untucked, and his tie loose, his dark green hair was consistently messy, but Pyrrha liked him, he clearly loved his subject, history, and today, his lecture was on the Faunus War.

"...This is prior to the Faunus Rights Revolution, more popularly known as the Faunus war, Humankind was quite, quite adamant about centralizing Faunus populations in Menagerie." The teacher zipped off to the side of the classroom, to sip his coffee, before zooming back, to continue his lecture.

"Now! While this must seem like ancient history to most of you, it is imperative that you remember these are relatively _recent_ events, why the repercussions of the uprising can still be felt to this day!" He zooms off to drink more coffee, before posing a question to his students.

"Now! Have any among you been subjugated or discriminated against because of your Faunus heritage?" Several hands raised, including Troy's, Blake's, and the brown haired rabbit Faunus girl. The green haired professor shook his head sadly.

"Dreadful! Simply dreadful! Remember students! It is exactly this kind of ignorance that breeds violence! I mean, I mean just look at what happened to the White Fang! Now! Which of you young scallions tell me what many theorize to be the turning point in the third year of the war?"

Weiss raised her hand.

"Yes?"

"It's the battle of Fort Castle."

"Precisely! And can anyone tell me the advantage the Faunus had over General Lagune's forces? Mr. Arc! You've been quiet these last few classes, why don't you answer this question?"

Jaune racked his brains, before answering. "Wasn't it night vision?" Pyrrha silently thanked Ryu for insisting that the three teams have regular study sessions together.

"Exactly! Very good Mr. Arc!" Dr. Oobleck noticed Cardin growl in frustration.

"Mr. Winchester! Why don't you share what you would have said?"

"Well, of course it's easier to train an _animal_ than a soldier." Nearly everyone in the class, human and faunus, glared at him.

"Well I suppose orangutans are an exception, otherwise how would you explain your grades?" Troy shot back. The rest of the class laughed.

"That's enough Mr. Belladonna, Mr. Winchester, please stay after class for extra readings, now can anyone explain why night vision was the deciding advantage?"

Blake spoke up. "The General was inexperienced and made the mistake of trying to attack the faunus in their sleep." She aimed her next comment right at Cardin. "Perhaps, if he had paid attention in class he wouldn't have been known as _such_ a failure."

"Thank you Miss Belladonna, would you and Mr. Belladonna stay after class to receive your partners' homework, and could you please give it to them when they wake up?"

Day 19, Part:2.2 Cardin: Victory

It was all that damn blonde wimp's fault, Cardin fumed as he walked out of Dr. Oobleck's class, the blonde wimp and those two animal freaks, they would pay for humiliating him in class. Cardin plotted Arc's and the Belladonnas' punishments all the way back to CRDL's dorm. He ignored Dove, Russel and Sky, they were just his lackeys, unless one of them had something important to say, which was highly unlikely, he usually left them to their own devices until he needed them. Cardin took his customary seat in the open window, he liked the view from his dorm room. Tonight, however he heard raised voices coming from the roof directly above him, he listened in, because, after all you never knew when you'd hear something useful, once he recognised the voices he could barely keep from laughing aloud, it was Arc, and his _oh so famous_ partner, Pyrrha Nikos.

"I mean I didn't go to combat school, I didn't pass any tests. I didn't _earn_ my spot at this Academy! I lied! I got my hands on some fake transcripts, and I lied!" Jaune's voice was getting louder and louder with each word. _Oh... This is excellent! I've got the pathetic little wimp on a hook, I always thought it was weird that he sucked so badly, now I know why._

When Nikos walked away Cardin climbed onto the roof.

"Oh, Jaune..." Arc whirled at the sound of Cardin's voice.

"I couldn't help hearing the two of you from my dorm room. So, you snuck into Beacon, huh? I gotta say, I never expected you to be such a rebel!" It was true, he hadn't thought weak little Arc would have had it in him, but that just proved you couldn't judge a book by it's cover.

"Please, Cardin, _please_, don't tell anyone." Jaune was pleading with him, Cardin took a second to savor his victim's helplessness, before giving Jaune an evil grin.

"Jaune, come on! I could never rat out a friend like that."

Arc was confused. "A-a friend?"

Cardin headlocked Jaune. "Of course! we're _friends_ now Jauney boy! And the way I see it, as long as you're there for me when I need it we'll be friends for a _long_ time." Cardin released Jaune before delivering his first order. "That being said, I really don't have time to do that extra reading Professor Oobleck assigned me, do you think you could do it? Pages fifty one, to ninety one, and don't forget the essay, it's due next class, so you'd better get cracking!"

Chuckling to himself, Cardin climbed back down into his room, he fell asleep with a smile on his face that night.

* * *

(author's note: and here's day nineteen part two, not my best chapter, but I hope you like it, and please comment, next chapter is going to mostly be Yang and Ryu)


	9. Chapter 9

Day 20, part one: Recovery

Ryu woke up to the delighted shriek of a fifteen year old girl, Ruby Rose was restraining herself from hugging her sister, who, apparently had woken up before Ryu had. Ruby was bouncing up and down in excitement. "Ohh, you're awake, I'm so glad you're okay!"

"Good morning ladies. How are you feeling Yang?"

Both girls jumped at the sound of Ryu's voice, Yang winced as her jolt must have jarred an injury.

"Sorry about that, I didn't mean to startle you." Ryu apologized.

"Don't worry too much about it, Breezy, it just stings a bit when I move too suddenly." Ryu could tell from the sound of her voice that it was much more painful than a little stinging, but Yang was putting up a tough act for her sister.

Yang looked at Ruby, then at the clock. "Shouldn't you be in class little sister?"

"I got permission to stay until you guys woke up, now that you're awake, yeah, I really should head to class, I'll be back with everyone else once class is over, see you two later!"

After Ruby left, Ryu broke the silence. "You're proud of her, aren't you?"

Yang nodded. "Every moment of every day."

"I'm kind of jealous, to be honest, I don't have any siblings, at least none that I remember."

"What do you mean?"

"I was found by my master in the middle of a destroyed village, I had no memories other than my name, technically, I don't even know how old I am, Master Adam said I was six when he found me, but that's just a guess, although if the village I was in was my home, then I suppose it's for the best that I don't remember anything before the aftermath of it's destruction, any family I might have had is most likely dead anyway, Master Adam and his wife were the only family I knew, until Serenity was murdered for being married to a Faunus, and Master Adam left me behind to join the White Fang. So I guess I'm jealous of what you and Ruby have."

"Ryu... I'm sorry about what happened to you."

"Don't be, if it hadn't happened I wouldn't be here, and I never would have met any of you guys."

The nurse brought a breakfast tray for them, and checked their bandages, afterwards they ate in silence. Ryu could actually feel his wounds beginning to heal, his aura working to mend bruised and broken bones, even the massive second degree burn on his arm had shrunk several inches since he'd seen it last night, Yang seemed to have healed a little as well, because she sat up.

"My mother left my Dad and I."

Ryu froze. "Yang, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"I know, but you told me your story, sure you didn't go into too much detail, but I understand why, and I know how hard it is to relive painful memories, so I'm answering your effort with one of my own, so shut up." Ryu shut up.

Yang's lilac eyes became distant as she looked back on some distant memory.

"I don't remember my mother at all, I suppose we have that in common, she left shortly after I was born, and two years later, Dad married another woman, Summer Rose, all three of them were hunters, they were on the same team at Beacon, with Ruby's Uncle Qrow. Summer was the best Mom a girl could hope for, in fact, I didn't even know she wasn't my real mother until the day she went on a mission and never came back, Dad had long ago taken a teaching position at Signal, but Summer was still on active duty, when we got the letter, telling us that Summer Rose was missing in action and presumed dead, Dad sort of broke down, he stopped teaching, he stopped doing _anything_ but sit in his office and stare at her picture. Uncle Qrow showed up every chance he got, but I mostly raised Ruby myself, I made sure Dad ate and drank enough, I made sure he slept, and I took care of Ruby. It was Uncle Qrow who told me about my mother, and ever since then I've been searching for her."

"Wow, Yang, I-I've gotta say, you may just be the strongest person I've ever met, I know that I would never have made it in your position, and in spite of everything that's happened, I want you to know, you did a good job, raising Ruby, you're right to feel proud of who she's turned out to be, it's because of you that she became the person she is today."

Ryu almost couldn't believe it but Yang was _blushing_. "Thanks, but you went through plenty yourself Breezy, you're just as strong as I am."

"I disagree, but let's stop talking about depressing things, what was it you said? 'It's not healthy to dwell on the negatives, you should always look at the positives too.'"

They spent hours telling each other the good memories from their childhoods, sharing laughter seemed to push the dark memories back down where they belonged.

After lunch their friends arrived.

"I hear you guys will be cleared to leave late this evening, though you won't be allowed to participate in any physically strenuous activities for another week." Ren reported once everyone was settled in for the visit.

"Just in time for the field trip to Forever Fall, for Professor Peach's Biology class!" Ruby cut in excitedly.

"So, are the two of you behaving yourselves?" Troy asked jokingly.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Fired back Yang, teasing.

"We can't leave our beds yet Troy, there hasn't exactly been much chance to misbehave, however, I did learn several very interesting stories about _you_ Ruby."

"_Yang_! What did you tell him!?"

"Oh, nothing." Yang's innocent look fooled nobody, least of all her sister. "I may have mentioned 'the princess phase' or 'the Vale mall incident' when you were six, you know, little stuff like that."

Ruby went white. "_You didn't!_"

"I just did my duty as your older sister to embarrass you at every opportunity."

"If you weren't already in a hospital bed I'd hit you." Ruby warned.

Curious now, Troy asked. "What's the Vale mall incident." Yang was about to answer, but Ruby covered her mouth with both hands.

Troy turned to Ryu.

"Sorry Troy, not my story to tell."

"Aww, c'mon! Tell me man, I'm your partner!"

"No can do, Partner, sorry."

Soon they had to go back to their last few classes.

Day 20, Part: two: the kiss

At seven they were released to go back to their dorms, and their combat attire was returned to them, since they still had an hour before curfew, they walked around the campus together, until the sun began to set at seven thirty, they leaned against the rail on one of the many balconies facing the west, and watched the sun go down. At seven forty five they left the sunset and walked to their dorms. At the door to Team RWBY's room, they turned to face each other, Ryu was about to wish Yang goodnight, when she reached up, and pulled him down into a kiss, after a moment of shock, he reciprocated, they broke apart quickly, but they both entered their rooms with smiles on their faces, the kiss had been brief, tame, and fairly chaste, but it was confirmation of their feelings, Ryu couldn't sleep for hours afterward, he was planning a date.

* * *

(Author's note: and there we go, the start of this story's romance, Yang just struck me as the type who'd make the first move. As always, enjoy, and comment, I need some reviews or I don't know how I'm doing.)


	10. Chapter 10

**Day 21, Part one: Troy**

**"****So, Ryu what was that you said about not being in love?" Troy had been teasing his partner for the past hour, it was so much fun! Teams RLTN, JNPR, and RWBY were in Vale, Ryu and Yang had started holding hands, which was what caused Troy to start teasing them, or more accurately, tease Ryu, teasing Yang was pointless, she was better at it than he was.**

**"****You were right! I was being an idiot, now could you please stop?"**

**Troy pretended to consider. "Hmmm, nope I don't think so!"**

**"****C'mon Breezy, you need to develop a thicker skin, especially if you want to date me, just don't take it so seriously and it won't be nearly as annoying." Yang advised.**

**"****Yeah, Partner, listen to your lady."**

**"****My lady?"**

**"****Yeah! Aren't Samurai kinda like Eastern Knights?"**

**"****Not really, and I'm not an actual Samurai anyway, I've never taken any oaths, at most, I'm a Ronin, a Samurai without a lord, and even that's a stretch, my fighting style is somewhat Samurai-like, so people started calling me the wind samurai, that doesn't make me one."**

**"****You know, you really have a talent for sucking the fun out of things."**

**"****Thanks, I try my best." Ryu replied sarcastically.**

**Troy grinned. "Ha! Yang, if hanging around you has him being sarcastic, stick around, who knows, he might eventually get a real sense of humor!"**

**"****I plan to."**

**"****Hey! I have a sense of humor!"**

**"****Breezy, there's a fairly large list of things I like about you, that list does not include the words: funny, witty, or humorous. But you're learning, I will give you that."**

**Troy spotted what he was looking for while he'd been teasing his partner.**

**"****Guys, why don't we break off into smaller groups, I want to show Blake something."**

**Everyone agreed, and they divided up into small groups, Ryu was dragged off by Yang, Ruby and Weiss went off with Laura, Natalie and the members of JNPR went to do some shopping.**

**"****C'mon Sis! I've got something you'll want see."**

**"****Okay."**

**The two cat faunas walked down the street to the outskirts of the city, until they reached an iron gate beneath a sign that read "here lie the heroes".**

**"****Troy... What?"**

**"****I've arranged for Mom's body to be moved here, I thought it would be fitting, having her final resting place with her comrades, and their predecessors, I've already talked to Dad, he's given his approval, and he'll be here for the burial, he's excited to see you. The graveyard isn't what I wanted to show you though." The siblings entered the graveyard, and walked to the B section, where an open, empty grave, and a headstone waited. The headstone read: Sylvia Belladonna, Born: April 3, 972, Died: September 19, 1002, "Beloved Wife, Mother, and Huntress: She died as she lived."**

**Blake was stunned. "Y-you did this?"**

**"****Yeah, Dad helped, but he let me make the arrangements."**

**Troy grunted as Blake hugged him hard enough to knock the breath out of him.**

**"****You are, hands down, the best brother ever, I know Mom would be proud."**

**"****Thanks, Sis, but do you mind lightening up on the rib crushing, I might need those later." Troy asked, uncomfortable with the praise.**

**Day 21, part: 1.1: Natalie**

**Natalie was enjoying her day off from school, Troy was teasing Ryu, who was holding hands with Yang, she was happy for them, those two had been dancing around being together ever since she knew them, it was good to know that things had turned out well on that end. Natalie's leader was worryingly unsure of himself at times, but he didn't let that stop him from making whatever decisions he thought were best for his team, the silent sniper respected him for that.**

**Another leader she had grown to respect was Ruby, the fifteen year old scythe wielder had been dealing with the pressure of being pushed ahead two years and then being made leader of her own team, remarkably well, of course, it helped that her sister was on her team, Natalie could tell that Ruby still relied on her big sister for support, but that was perfectly fine, after all, as Natalie knew, that's what big sisters were there for, but the young leader had clearly gotten wiser, she was still a hyperactive, cookie addicted, weapons enthusiast, but she'd learned what it meant to lead, and she did a good job of it. Ruby was discussing the structural benefits of some metal or other with Laura, Natalie's partner was clearly taking the negative side of the debate, but beyond that the conversation went completely over the orange eyed girl's head.**

**Natalie turned her attention to Jaune, something was clearly wrong with the boy, he was quiet, withdrawn and he wasn't meeting anyone's eyes, not even his partner's, in fact the entire Team JNPR was unusually subdued, Pyrrha actually seemed angry, while Ren seemed confused, and even Nora wasn't bouncing around as much, Natalie knew that was the biggest sign that something was wrong, not much got Nora to slow down. Natalie's position on things like this was not to interfere unless approached, but that didn't stop her from worrying about her friends, maybe if this took too long to resolve on it's own, she'd ask Laura or Ryu to get involved, but for now she would wait.**

**Day 21, part 1.2: Laura**

**Laura had no idea that keeping up with Ruby would be so... Difficult, it wasn't as if she tried to lose her three companions, she didn't, but they were on a street that contained a bakery, a fruit stand and a weapons store, and the ridiculously fast fifteen year old was zipping around, trying to decide whether she wanted to ogle the weapons, buy a box of cookies, or a bag of strawberries, in the end she did all three, dropping the food into her partner's arms while she zoomed into the weapons shop to inspect a new machete/shotgun combo weapon, she even got a box of ammunition for her weapon, when she came back Weiss unceremoniously dumped Ruby's previous purchases into her leader's arms.**

**"****I'm not your personal pack mule Ruby, you're perfectly capable of carrying your own items, honestly, why didn't you just go into the weapon shop first, then buy the food?" Weiss gently admonished her partner, Ruby apologized to her partner, before zooming off to do something else.**

**Laura had noticed that those two had evidently resolved their problems from the first day of school, and while neither had changed very much, Weiss had learned not to expect her leader to conform to what Weiss believed to be the perfect leader, and she'd learned to appreciate the younger girl's style of leadership instead, even if she didn't always approve of her leader's actions, as for Ruby, she'd become more responsible, she put her teammates before herself, usually, and she'd toned down the messing around, though she'd by no means stopped it entirely.**

**"****I'm going to go make sure that red cloaked idiot doesn't get into too much trouble." Weiss said.**

**"****Okay, I'll catch up later, I need to buy more arrows for White Storm."**

**_I wonder what my teammates are doing?_**

**Day 21 part 2: Ryu: the robbery**

**Ryu and Yang had just exited their third clothing store, of course, Ryu was carrying everything, he'd tucked Wind's Fang's sheath into his belt to free up his hands, they'd all come armed, Beacon encouraged it's students to be prepared for trouble while not within it's walls.**

**"****Are you planning anything for the next off day on Thursday?" Ryu asked.**

**"****Nope! Do you have any?"**

**"****Well, if you want, our first date."**

**Yang smiled at him, Ryu nearly tripped over his own feet, but caught himself before he would have fallen over. "Sounds good to me, where and when?"**

**"****Where's a surprise, but let's meet up at the landing platforms at seven, it's formal wear."**

**"****Can't wait to see me in a dress?" Yang asked teasingly.**

**"****Of course."**

**"****It takes the fun out of teasing you when you just admit to it." Yang grumbled**

**"****I know." Ryu replied with a grin, Yang bumped him with her shoulder. They were walking past a Dust store, when ten armed men walked out, followed by a man in a white coat and black bowler hat carrying a cane, Ryu recognised him from news reports, Roman Torchwick, one of Vale's most infamous criminals. Ryu set the bags down and pulled his sheathed sword out of his belt, Yang, who had also recognised Roman, activated Ember Celica.**

**"****Lovely day for a shopping trip, isn't it? Though I don't think you remembered to pay for your purchases." Ryu commented idly, the eleven thugs turned to see the pair of armed teenagers.**

**"****Oh great, first it was Red and her Huntress babysitter, now it's the odd couple." Roman griped.**

**"****Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you about that, Ryu, my baby sister stopped one of this joker's robberies, that's why she was given early acceptance to Beacon." Yang said.**

**"****Hey, blondie, go tell your kid sister to butt out of other people's business."**

**"****Now what kind of sister would I be if I told Ruby not to do something I'm about to do right now? Don't you think, eyeliner guy?" Roman growled at the nickname, he did indeed appear to be wearing eyeliner around his one visible eye, he ordered his men to attack.**

**"****I've got the grunts, Yang, get the boss."**

**"****Got it!"**

**Ryu charged the ten grown men, he didn't even bother drawing his sword, which was locked into it's sheath unless Ryu pressed a button at the mouth of the sheath, he just took Wind's Fang by the hilt and used the blunt sheath to ensure that his strikes were nonlethal, a low sweep knocked the first thug off his feet, then Ryu stepped on the knee of the second thug, lifted himself up, and clubbed the man over the head with a quick horizontal slash, before kicking off the man's chest and flipping in midair to kick a third thug in the face with an aura infused foot, landing lightly Ryu leg swept a thug, and jabbed behind himself with his sheathed sword, he kicked the prone thug in the face, twirled, and kicked the man he'd just jabbed in the face, in the gut, Wind's Fang blocked a slash, then Ryu backed up so that the swordsman who'd tried to cut him was between Ryu and a gunman, Ryu blocked another slash, punched the man in the throat and took the sheath in his left hand, as the man fell and the thug with the gun opened fire, Wind's Fang flashed out of it's sheath to slice the bullet in half, then slid back into it's sheath with a click, in the next second, Ryu had closed the approximately ten foot gap between them, and driven his fist into the man's solar plexus, a roundhouse kick knocked the eighth thug out, leaning back, Ryu dodged a sword strike, before striking the man's wrist, his shoulder, and his opposite knee in rapid succession, before a kick to the face dropped him, the final thug tried to run, Ryu activated his Semblance and slammed the man into the wall of the shop he'd helped rob.**

**Yang had charged past the grunts and aimed a straight right at Torchwick, but the cane wielding thief swept her arm aside with his weapon, a left uppercut was swiftly dodged, and the dashing thief's weapon, Melodic Cudgel swept forward, connecting solidly with Yang's side, causing her to flinch, all the opening that Torchwick needed, Melodic Cudgel lashed out again, but Yang dropped into a backwards roll, before springing back up, golden flames began flickering through her hair, firing her gauntlets behind her the blonde brawler threw herself at the thief, Torchwick backed up quickly, dodging and deflecting the flurry of blows that Yang was sending his way, Torchwick slid his hand down Melodic Cudgel's shaft until he held the cane by the middle, he blocked two more punches, before hooking Yang's head with his cane and yanked her down into his raised knee, her nose broke from the force of the blow, but her aura stopped it from being any worse, though she was still stunned, he clubbed her hard across the face, and then hit her again with enough force to knock her off feet, Yang recovered quickly however, and the flames in her hair grew brighter, and her eyes shifted to red, charged in with a straight kick, Melodic Cudgel caught the blow, but the force of the kick sent Torchwick flying backward, the clever fighter rolled to his feet and pointed his cane at his opponent, a crosshairs popped up, he pulled the trigger at the charging brawler, who launched herself skyward with a pair of shotgun blasts from Ember Celica, Torchwick rolled out of the way as she slammed into the spot he'd been kneeling on moments before, he gulped as a crater appeared beneath the blonde girl, he leveled his cane at his opponent and fired, hitting the brawler before she could dodge. He had only a second's warning before he had to dodge to the side to avoid a green sword blade whistling past his head, it cut part of the brim of his hat off.**

**"****Hey, kid, that was my favorite hat!"**

**Ryu was glowing green, his eyes resembled those of a deadman, the only sign of life in them was a burning hatred.**

**"****_I will kill you." _****The boy's voice was flat yet somehow full of malice.**

**"****Aww, did I hurt your girlfriend?"**

**"****Yes." The green haired boy vanished into thin air, acting on instinct Torchwick blocked the slash aimed for his neck, the thief hooked the sword with his cane and punched the boy in the face, but the kid barely felt it, he disengaged his sword and returned it to it's sheath, then he dashed forward and slashed again, Torchwick swept the blade up above his head, the sword zipped back into it's sheath, then flashed out so quickly that only the experienced fighter's instincts allowed him to interpose his cane between the green blade and his chest, he didn't count on a blast of wind, which had lost most of it's cutting edge when it hit the cane, which it couldn't cut, it still left a shallow cut along one of Torchwick's ribs, the thief whacked the samurai in the face, then hit him in the gut and kicked him with an aura infused strike that sent him tumbling away, Torchwick fired several flares at the boy, then he ran for the getaway vehicle, Ryu slashed three flares out of the air, Yang's long range shells deflected the rest of them.**

**"****Yang! You're ok!" The green glow vanished around Ryu's body, as he ran to her.**

**Yang looked like she'd she'd just lost a fight, which, Ryu supposed, they both had. Once the adrenaline ran out they heard the cop cars, which had probably been the reason Roman had run, he could have taken them both, but two Hunter's in training and a bunch of cops? No.**

**"****I'm glad you're okay, if he'd caused you permanent injury, or worse, killed you, I would have attacked until either he was dead, or I was." Ryu admitted.**

**"****Well then I'm glad that didn't happen." Yang replied, then they sat down on the pavement to wait for the police.**

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**(Author's Note: Yang and Ryu had no chance at beating Roman, he kicked Blake and Sun's asses when they fought in the show, so he's definitely more than a match for any pair of first year students, and yeah, Ryu managed to damage Torchwick's clothes, and give him one shallow cut, but if that fight had continued Torchwick would have won, but still, I liked writing that fight scene, and I hope you like reading it! Enjoy, and Review, please!)**


	11. Chapter 11

**Day 25, part one: Forever Fall**

**Four days later, on wednesday, was the Forever Fall field trip. Teams RWBY, JNPR, CRDL, and RLTN were taken to the forest, which was famous for it's red leaved trees, and wind weather that caused leaves to fall from the branches almost constantly, hence the name, the forest was also famous for the sweet sap the trees produced, which unfortunately, attracted the Creatures of Grimm.**

**The four teams were walking along, most of them entranced by their surroundings, Ryu had to admit, the forest was gorgeous, but his thoughts were preoccupied thinking about his date with Yang the next day, in fact he was so distracted that he nearly ran into a tree. Their chaperone, Professor Goodwitch began speaking.**

**"Yes, students, the forest of Forever Fall is indeed beautiful. But we are not here to sightsee. Professor Peach has asked all of you to collect samples from the trees deep inside this forest, and I'm here to make sure none of you die while doing so."**

**The four teams divided, though Ryu was concerned to see Cardin tell Jaune something that made his shoulders slump and had him trailing after Team CRDL.**

**Everyone separated to gather sap samples. The actual procurement of the samples was almost ridiculously easy, all they need to do was cut a slit in the bark of a tree, and the sap would just flow out, it looked disturbingly like thick blood, those with no bladed weapons had to ask someone else, Nora recruited Ren, and once Ryu had gathered his jar of sap, Yang approached him.**

**"****Hey, Breezy do you think you could cut this tree for me, Ember Celica aren't exactly useful in this situation."**

**Ryu nodded, walked over, and slashed a horizontal line in the bark with his sword, then he leaned against the tree next to Yang's, and watched the blonde brawler fill her jar, they both kept a tight hold on their jars, Nora was swiping any unattended sap jars, and drinking the sugary contents while the owner's back was turned. After several moments of silence, Yang spoke.**

**"****You called me your girlfriend, back with Torchwick, when he taunted you, asking if I was your girlfriend, you said yes."**

**Ryu blinked. "Was I not supposed to? If so I'm..."**

**Yang interrupted him mid sentence. "No, no! It's fine, I like the sound of it, it's just... I've dated guys before, but it's never been serious, ****_this is_****, and it scares me a little."**

**"****Well, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous too, I haven't exactly had much experience with people my own age, particularly girls, the only friend I had before I met all of you, was Pyrrha, and we weren't in contact for a full year, I'd just like you to know that you're not the only one in new territory here, we'll figure this relationship out together, it's going to turn out fine Yang, I can promise that." Yang looked up into his eyes, lilac meeting forest green.**

**"****I'm holding you to that promise Samurai Boy, if you mess this up I'll blow your nuts off."**

**"****If I'm dumb enough to ruin our relationship, I'd let you, you're worth the risk, absolutely." Yang kissed him on the cheek.**

**"****Good, because I plan on sticking around." Her hand curled behind his neck, their lips were inches apart...**

**Team CRDL, minus their leader and their victim ran into the clearing yelling.**

**"****Ursa! Ursa!" Troy grabbed Russel Thrush.**

**"****Where?" He demanded.**

**The skinny knife wielder pointed behind him. "Back there, it's got Cardin!"**

**Troy tossed the mohawked bully to the ground. "And you left him there? Some teammate you are." Russel at least had the decency to look ashamed.**

**Pyrrha's jar thudded to the ground. "Jaune!" The red haired Amazon gasped.**

**Ruby took charge of her team. "Blake, Yang, go get Professor Goodwitch!"**

**"****Laura, Natalie, go with them, there may be more monsters." Ryu ordered.**

**Pyrrha sent Ren and Nora along with the group, then Ruby, Weiss, Pyrrha, Ryu, and Troy ran in the direction Russel had pointed, weapons ready.**

**They reached a clearing, and were greeted with a startling sight, Cardin, disarmed and terrified was knocked onto his back, the massive Ursa Major was going for the kill, when it's paw swipe was caught on a white shield, Jaune's shield. In a feat of impressive strength the blonde knight pushed the Ursa Major back with his shield, and slashed it's chest with Crocea Mors, the longsword didn't harm the monster, but it did force the Ursa back. Weiss leveled Myrtenaster, and Ryu prepared to charge in and slice the monster to bits, but Pyrrha held up a hand. "Wait." The Hunters in training stood down, but they were all tensed and ready to jump in if necessary. Jaune charged the monster, he jumped over the first swipe, but the second hit him in midair and sent him tumbling away, to everyone's surprise Jaune popped back up and leapt at the monster, who batted him aside again, and again Jaune rolled to his feet seemingly unscathed, ****_how large is Jaune's aura?_****Ryu wondered as he watched his friend charge a third time, this time he stayed on the ground, shield raised, and sword low, the Ursa Major was lunging forward with a paw raised, the combatants were about to have the final exchange, both of them began to strike, but Ryu could see Jaune's shield begin to drop, he was unconsciously lowering his arm as he swung upwards, he wouldn't survive this exchange, suddenly Pyrrha raised her hand, faint black light emanated from her fingers, and at the same moment Jaune's shield raised on it's own, a black glow surrounding it, the raised shield caught the paw, Jaune planted his feet and swung upward with all his might, Crocea Mors sheared through the Ursa Major's neck, and the huge bear creature fell to the ground, minus it's head.**

**Ruby was looking at Pyrrha's hand with confusion. "Uh, what?" The crimson cloaked reaper asked.**

**Pyrrha ended her confusion. "Well, you and Ryu have your speed, Weiss has her Glyphs, and we have no idea what Troy can do, but my Semblance is Polarity."**

**Ruby nodded. "You can control poles." She said in an awed voice, Ryu and Troy snorted in laughter, but Weiss corrected her leader.**

**"No, you dunce! It means she has control over magnetism."**

**"****Magnets are cool too." Ruby whispered, still impressed.**

**Pyrrha began walking away. "Where are you going? We have to tell them what happened!" Weiss called after her.**

**Pyrrha turned back. "We could, or... We could keep it our little secret." Ryu could see what she meant, Jaune was holding his head high, showing a confidence that had been absent for as long as Ryu had known the somewhat goofy knight.**

**Day 25 part two: Jaune**

**Jaune was feeling great, sure he'd been beaten up by CRDL and then swatted around by that huge Ursa, but that didn't matter, he'd killed his first Grimm, he walked over to Cardin's sprawled form, and offered his hand to help the bully up, Cardin took the help, his face plastered with shock, which Jaune enjoyed almost as much as the adrenaline rush from his victory.**

**"****Holy Crap! Jaune?!" Cardin exclaimed, now that he was standing the two boys were basically eye to eye, Jaune decided to let Cardin off with a warning. "Don't ****_ever_****mess with my team... My friends, ever again, got it?" Cardin nodded dumbly.**

**Suddenly the clearing was full of people.**

**Ruby zoomed over and started to chatter excitedly. "That was SO COOL! The Ursa was like 'Raawrr' (she took a pose like a roaring Ursa, her fingers crooked like claws) Then you were all like 'hyaa' (she started swinging her arms around wildly as if she was wielding a sword) and then the monster went 'blargh' and it's head went flying over there (she pointed at the bone masked head that was already beginning to disintegrate) I just knew you had it in you!" Then she hugged him and zipped off.**

**Jaune looked over at his partner. "Did she eat her sap jar, because the last time she was like that, it was because she was on a sugar rush."**

**Pyrrha shook her head, a smile formed as she looked at her leader. "No, she tried, but Weiss stopped her, she's just excited after seeing that fight, you handled yourself remarkably well, considering..." ****_Considering I'd never gotten any formal training_****Jaune finished.**

**"****Yeah, that Ursa was no problem at all!" Jaune declared, falling back into his usual bravado. Pyrrha's clear bell like laugh sounded through the clearing, ****_she has a really pretty laugh, just like the rest of her..._****Woah, hold the crazy train, this Arc was getting off, Pyrrha was his partner, she was way out of his league, and she'd never caused him to believe that she wanted to be anything beyond friends, ****_in fact, shouldn't I be doing something to make up for almost ruining that friendship? Like maybe apologising and begging for mercy?_**** "****Pyrrha, I'm..." At that moment Professor Goodwitch and the others who hadn't been there immediately following the fight burst into the clearing, even the three CRDLs who'd run off when the Ursa Major had attacked were standing by their leader, looking ashamed of themselves, as well they should, they'd left Cardin there to die while they'd ran for their lives.**

**Pyrrha spoke up. "We'll talk on the rooftop tonight, come on, our friends are waiting for us."**

**"****Yeah, let's go, partner." Pyrrha's smile could have made an angel green with envy. Once Jaune managed to restart his brain a heartbeat later they walked over to the others.**

**Day 25 part 2.1: Pyrrha**

**It was night time, Pyrrha and Jaune were back on the rooftop where he'd told her his secret, and Pyrrha was nervous, like she always was when she was alone with her leader, who was standing before her, a penitent expression on his handsome face.**

**"****Pyrrha... I'm sorry, I was being a jerk. You were only trying to be nice, and I had all this stupid... Macho stuff in my head, and..."**

**Pyrrha felt immense relief as she interrupted her bumbling leader. "Jaune it's okay... ( they shared a smile, and Pyrrha's heart skipped a beat) Your team really misses their leader, you know, (she begins to walk toward the door, her step lighter than when they'd come up here) you should come down, Ren made pancakes! No syrup though, you can thank Nora for that." The bubbly hammer wielder had indeed eaten all of Team JNPR's share of the sap from the field trip, and was currently bouncing off the walls, literally last Pyrrha had seen her.**

**Jaune let out a little laugh before he turned serious. "Pyrrha, I know I don't deserve it after all that's happened, but would still be willing to help me... Help me become a better fighter!"**

**Pyrrha turned her back on her leader so he wouldn't see her satisfied smile, inside she was leaping with joy, finally! He was trusting her, he wanted to spend more time with her, and he was finally swallowing that damn pride of his, his previous intention to do everything himself had hurt her more than she'd care to admit, but he was finally ready to become the great Huntsman she knew he could become. ****_Why not start the transformation now?_****Pyrrha walked up to her leader, and long time crush, and pushed him to the ground.**

**"****Hey!" Jaune complained.**

**_You're going to have to get used to this if I'm training you._****Pyrrha thought, before speaking in her most businesslike tone. "Your stance is wrong, you need to be wider, and lower to the ground, let's try that again." She offered him her hand, and he reached up and allowed her to pull him to his feet, they stood there for a long moment, still holding hands, gazing into each other's eyes, they separated with identical blushes.**

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**(Author's Note: Sorry for taking so long on this chapter, I'm easily distracted, anyway, please read, enjoy, and review, thank you)**


	12. Chapter 12

**Day 25 part three: Torchwick**

**Roman Torchwick was having a bad day, and the fact that it was almost over wasn't making him feel better, the cane wielding thief took a long drag on his cigar, Mistralian tobacco, the best in his not so humble opinion, but it wasn't helping to calm his nerves, tonight he was going to meet with one of Cinder's new henchmen. Mercury and Emerald were bad enough, but Torchwick had heard some disturbing rumors about this new guy and his team, all four were killers, that in itself didn't bother Roman, he himself had killed several times before, and enjoyed it too, but his kills had always been collateral damage during robberies, or police officers that wouldn't give up, these four teenagers killed for no other reason than enjoyment, and they played with their victims, this practice was repellent to Roman, he had no moral problem with it, he was a self admitted sociopath, morals were meaningless drivel to him, no, as a businessman and a criminal, Roman knew the value of torture, but to do it for fun was sloppy, wasteful, and unproductive, and that was what disgusted Torchwick.**

**"****Nice evening! Isn't it?" Torchwick barely managed to stop himself from jumping out of his skin, behind him, sitting on a crate, was a purple haired young man in a full face mask decorated with purple lightning streaks, a pair of katanas were strapped to his back, his outfit was black leather, the glove on his left hand dripped with blood.**

**"****Who did you kill on your way in?"**

**"****Oh." The young man looked down at his bloody hand as if he'd forgotten that his entire left hand was soaked in crimson, then he shrugged carelessly.**

**"****Just those two little puppies that were guarding the door."**

**Torchwick racked his brains for the descriptions of the two sentries on duty at this time, he couldn't come up with anything other than the fact that they were both dog Faunas, Roman rarely learned the names of his underlings, unless they distinguished themselves in some way, they would remain nothing but fodder, if he ever bothered to learn a name, that person was either a threat, or just slightly more competent fodder.**

**"****I take it you're the new goon sent by Cinder to keep an eye on our operations here."**

**"****That's right!" The masked kid exclaimed. "You can call me Purple Lightning, my teammates, who you will meet some other time are Silver Wolf, Dark Goddess, and our leader: Blue Death. Obviously we don't use real names, after all, what you don't know can't be tortured out of you, which is kind of a pity, if you think about it, things would be so much more fun if you could find a way to torture information out of people that they don't even know." Torchwick felt a drop of cold sweat slide down his back, this guy was certifiably insane, ****_and I'm supposed to be working with this nutjob, not to mention his team, who will probably be just as bad, or worse._**

**Day 26 part one: The Gift**

**Ryu woke up at five in a cold sweat, his nightmares had come back again, they'd been cropping up sporadically for years, though once he'd gotten into Beacon he'd gotten at least two a week, always similar, the faces of his friends as he watched helplessly while a dark figure killed them one at a time, ending with Yang, each and every time, as the sword was pulled from his girlfriend's corpse he would wake up. Ryu got shakily from his bed, and began his morning routine, the comfortable familiarity of his workout and meditation calmed him, ****_it was just a dream, it was just a dream it was just a dream _****Ryu chanted in his head.**

**At seven o'clock Ryu walked out of his team's dorm room, he didn't bother waking the rest of his team, there were no classes today, and he felt like giving them a break with sleep, so he wandered the grounds, on the way to the lockers, to pick up Wind's Fang for some practice, the green haired Huntsman in training passed by the school forges, to find that they were active, he wasn't the only person up early. Out of curiosity, Ryu looked into the large room, to find Ruby putting the finishing touches on a long, thin object. The thing she was working on was a black sheath with green swirling wind patterns, a trigger under the mouth, and a set of sealed vents at the bottom of the sheath, it was also slightly thicker than any normal sheath.**

**"****What's that?" Ryu asked, the sound of his voice caused Ruby to jump and drop her tools.**

**"****Wha-? Oh! Ryu, you startled me." Then she realized that he'd asked a question.**

**"****This? Well... I might as well tell you, I was going to give you this after your date with Yang, you're the first boy who's actually made her happy, so I wanted to make something to thank you for that."**

**Ryu shook his head. "You didn't need to do this, I'm just happy to be with her, for as long as she wants me."**

**Ruby smiled at him. "Then you're going to be around for a ****_long _****time, I guarantee you, besides, I know I didn't have to, but I enjoyed making this, and it's because you don't want anything other than to make my sister happy that I decided to do it, so you ****_are _****going to accept it." Ruby picked up her tools and finished working on the sheath. When it was finished she handed it over to it's intended owner.**

**"****Just channel your aura into it to activate it." Ryu focused some of his energy into the sheath, immediately, the vents opened and sucked air in, before closing five seconds later, Ruby was grinning from ear to ear and jumping about excitedly.**

**"****It works! The Dust powered air compression system works!" Then she instantly calmed down, leaving Ryu to wonder how she switched gears like that so quickly.**

**"****Now we need to see if the rest of it works, here, put this into the slot next to the mouth of the sheath." Ruby handed Ryu a small metal disk with razor edges, Ryu took it carefully, then he inspected the mouth of the sheath, there was indeed a slit next to the mouth, that was the perfect size for the metal disk he held, he dropped the disk into the slit and it vanished as it fell down the length of the sheath.**

**"****Okay, now pull the thumb switch opposite the trigger." Ruby instructed. Ryu found the sliding bit of metal and, using his thumb, slid it down two inches, when he released it, the switch returned to it's original position, and a distinctive click was heard.**

**"****That was probably the disk being pushed into place, now all you need to do is channel your aura into the disk, pick a target, and pull the trigger, the range should only be about twenty feet, but that doesn't matter here." Ryu pulled the trigger on a chunk of wood in the spare materials racks, a ****_CRACK _****of compressed air sounded and the bladed disk, glowing slightly green, shot from the mouth of the sheath and embedded itself in the piece of wood, which split in two, the vents opened automatically and pulled more air into the sheath.**

**Ryu was impressed. "Wow Ruby, this is great work! How does it operate?" Ruby enthusiastically explained that she'd taken measurements from his normal sheath then she'd added four inches to the length and one inch to the width, there was a channel that could hold twenty blade disks like the one Ruby had given him for the test shot, and the four extra inches in length went to an air compression chamber enhanced by a small wind Dust crystal, the switch loading system was designed so that the disks didn't interfere with sheathing and unsheathing Wind's Fang and the disks were launched with the compressed air from the chamber, Ryu should even be able to shoot his sword about eight feet with considerable force if he fired while it was sheathed.**

**"****Oh yeah! I almost forgot this!" Ruby pulled a single glove from her pocket, there were metal plates on the back, and on the fingertips, to "make loading easier."**

**"****So!" Ruby finished. "What'll you name him?" There was Ruby's odd habit of referring to weapons with gender pronouns again.**

**Ryu thought for a second. "I'll call it... Wind's Claw, to match it's partner, Wind's Fang."**

**Ruby grinned. "I like it! Here's some ammo, come talk to me when you run out, and Ryu..."**

**"****Yes, Ruby?"**

**"****Good luck tonight!"**

**Ryu smiled down at her. "Thanks, now, I have a new weapon to test, if you'll excuse me?"**

**"****Go right ahead."**

**After thanking Ruby again Ryu walked out of the forges, slid the glove onto his right hand, and began loading metal disks into Wind's Claw's ammo compartment while he walked, by the time it was fully loaded, he had made it to the lockers, and had cut himself six times, and probably would have done it more, if it hadn't been for the metal on his fingertips, the cuts were small and easily healed with his aura, the cuts in the glove would have to be mended by hand, he'd get to it later, first he opened his locker and pulled out his sheathed sword, drawing the blade, Ryu set it on a bench and proceeded to compare the weights of the two sheaths, allowing himself to adjust to the extra weight of Wind's Claw, before placing his old sheath on the bench, and picking up his sword, he slid it into it's new home, the second half what he'd taken to calling in his head, the Wind Twins, the satisfactory click told him Ruby had managed to keep the sheath lock, acting on impulse, Ryu pressed the loading switch like a button, and to his surprise, it depressed and the sheath lock clicked open, allowing Ryu to draw his sword should he wish to, he didn't as he was just confirming the location of the lock release, Ruby had given him a bag full of eighty disks, which he tied to his belt, then he headed to the practice area.**

**Ryu had been working on simple moves, learning to accommodate for the extra weight and size of Wind's Claw, when a voice interrupted him.**

**"****I see Ruby managed to complete the surprise she's been talking about." Yang walked up to him.**

**"****Yeah, I came across her in the forges as I was walking to the lockers, I got curious, and then she told me that she was making this for me, and when she'd completed the finishing touches she gave it to me and showed me how it works, it's got an air gun built in, watch." Walking over to a range target, Ryu drew Wind's Fang and pulled the switch on Wind's Claw, loading a disk, then he pointed the sheath at the target and pulled the trigger, the sharp edged disk embedded itself in the second ring.**

**"****As you can see, I still need to work on my accuracy, but really, it's an impressive piece of craftsmanship, your sister is really talented."**

**A soft smile appeared on Yang's face, which happened any time she was thinking about her little sister's achievements. "Yeah, back at Signal she was top of the weapon forging class, she loves making things, but that sheath is the first thing she's forged since entering Beacon, she just hasn't had the time. Speaking of time, the first airships should be leaving in twenty minutes, wanna head into Vale, spend some time together before our date?"**

**Ryu grinned down at the girl he loved. "Sounds great!" Then he offered his arm, bowing dramatically. "Shall we be off, my Lady?"**

**"****We shall." They both laughed as Yang took Ryu's hand in hers and they walked to the airships. Once on the airship, Ryu and Yang sent texts to their respective teammates telling them where they would be.**

**"****Hey, Yang, do you like motorcycles?"**

**"****I own one, Bumblebee is my baby!"**

**"****Well then I've got something to show you." Ryu led Yang to Beacon's student parking building, where students who owned their own vehicles could store them in a secure area, the guard, a beefy man named Clyde recognized both of them.**

**"****Ryu and Yang, the two most frequent visitors I get. Looks like the two of you found something special, that's good, I take it you're here for your bikes?"**

**"****Yeah, we are, Mr. Aquarius." Ryu agreed.**

**Clyde smiled. "Okay kids, go right on in, and call me Clyde for Dust's sake kid."**

**The guard watched the young couple walk past, ****_ah to be young and in love_****, he thought.**

**The pair walked over to a keypad next to a large cylindrical tube, big enough to hold a van with plenty of room to move around it. Ryu punched in a code on the keypad, and after several mechanical clunks and whirs the tube opened up to display a sleek black motorcycle with green accents and the word ****_Aeolus _****painted on the side, directly under the handlebars and a metal loop to hold his sword. The motorcycle wasn't very large, it would hold two people, barely, but it was clearly built with speed in mind.**

**"****This is Aeolus, my modified VDM ****_Viper_****. Not bad, huh?"**

**"****I've seen worse." Yang commented, seemingly offhandedly, though the look she was giving the bike was starting to make Ryu a little jealous, he'd never thought he'd feel jealous of a motorcycle, let alone ****_his _****motorcycle, but there it was.**

**"****Hey Breezy..."**

**"****Yeah Yang?"**

**"****You realize that you just got about four times hotter in my mind?" Ryu's jealousy vanished.**

**"****I can live with that." Ryu rolled his bike out of the storage container, and picked up his helmet on the way out from it's wall peg.**

**Yang grinned eagerly. "Now it's my turn to show off my baby." Yang punched in her code.**

**Bumblebee was slightly larger than Aeolus, it still wasn't very big, a yellow and black classic SDV ****_Shredder_****, it was a ****_really _****good bike, not as nice as his, but that was just because of the modifications he'd made, a little work and Bumblebee would make Aeolus look like a tricycle.**

**"****Nice ride, wanna see whose is faster?" Ryu challenged with a grin.**

**Yang's answering grin made Ryu's head a little fuzzy. "You're on Samurai Boy, what should be our finish line?"**

**"****Heroes Park, the entrance closest to the Hunter monument." A famous landmark in Vale, named for the three monuments dedicated to the dead soldiers, emergency workers (police, firemen, EMTs), and Hunters who'd died in the line of duty. Both teenagers pulled on their helmets and mounted their bikes, they slowly rolled out onto the street, and said goodbye to Clyde, then they both accelerated. The competitors wove around cars, trucks and a city bus, they arrived at the first red light at nearly the same time, Yang was a little ahead as they came to a stop, waiting for the green light, the blonde brawler raised her visor and waved to Ryu, who waved back. The light turned green and the duo resumed their race, the first turn was up ahead, they took it at the same speed, this continued for twenty blocks and three turns. When they were a block away from the finish they both cranked out an extra burst of speed, Dust fire spurted from Bumblebee's exhaust, and twin circles of green energy radiated out of Aeolus' twin exhaust pipes, Ryu's burst of speed sent him past Yang and he came to a stop a full ten seconds before Yang.**

**Ryu dismounted and grinned at his opponent.**

**"****That was a great race! You really know your way around a bike." Yang congratulated.**

**"****You're just as good, if it weren't for my modifications to the Dust booster you would have had this."**

**"****Well, I think that your win gets you a small reward." Yang said as she walked over to her boyfriend.**

**"****What did you have in mind?" Ryu asked.**

**"****This." Yang wrapped her arms around Ryu's neck and kissed him. Ryu's arms settled around the small of Yang's back as he returned the kiss, and then deepened it, reveling in the softness of her lips, the small sigh she let out as his tongue slid between those lips, the heat and soft strength of her body in his arms, the kiss was deep, slow, and thorough. They stayed locked their embrace for almost a full minute, they were both gasping for air when they broke the kiss.**

**"****If you keep this up I'll have to change your nickname to Lover Boy."**

**"****I could live with that." The couple disengaged from their tight hug.**

**"****Come on, since we're here we should pay our respects."**

**"****Lead the way."**

**Yang's fingers slipped between Ryu's as they walked to the black stone wall full of carved names, in the middle of the most recent addition to the wall, just above a large blank space, was a name both teens recognized, Summer Rose.**

**Ryu and Yang stood in silence for a long moment, before their stomachs growled loudly at the same time.**

**"****Want to grab lunch?" Ryu asked.**

**"****Yeah." Yang's voice was subdued as she stared at the name of the woman who'd raised her.**

**Ryu slid his arm around her waist and kissed her temple, his voice, when he spoke was quiet and steady. "It will always hurt,Yang, but she's always going to be with you, everything she taught you, all your memories of her, they are a part of her that never leaves you." Yang turned her face into his chest, and hugged him gently.**

**"****Thanks, Ryu, I saw her name, and I just remembered it all, she's never coming back, I'll never see or speak to her again, and that knowledge hurt. I mean, it's nothing new, she's been gone for eleven years, but seeing that little engraving, with you next to me, gave me a bigger than usual jolt, I'll never introduce you to her, she'll never make a fuss about our first date, or threaten you with bodily harm if you mess up." That last part came out on a little laugh. "I'll never get a speech about being careful because you're my first serious boyfriend, or so many other things that other girls get from their mothers, but you're right, as long as I remember her, she's never truly gone, and you know what?"**

**"****What?"**

**"****I think she would have liked you a lot, I know I do."**

**"****I'd certainly hope so, it would be awkward if my girlfriend didn't like me, now come on, let's go grab lunch, we've let too many sad memories into our heads already, lets go make some good ones."**

**"****Okay." Each still with an arm around the other's waist, the couple walked back to the motorcycles.**

**"****Follow me, Yang, I know a great noodle stand not too far from here."**

**"****Sounds good."**

* * *

**(Author's Note: I hope you like the new chapter, no action, but Ryu gets a new weapon, we reveal Ryu's motorcycle Aeolus, the motorcycle company VDM (Vale Dust Motors) is my invention, but SDV (Schnee Dust Vehicles branch) is just an add on to the Schnee Dust company, and some decent romance between Ryu and Yang. As always, please Read, Review, and Enjoy.)**


	13. Chapter 13

**Day 26, part two: The Date and the DeMoNS**

**After lunch at the Simple Wok, Yang and Ryu returned to vehicle storage and dropped off Aeolus and Bumblebee, then they caught an airship back to Beacon, once there, they went to their dorms.**

**At seven Ryu stood at the landing platform, waiting for his girlfriend to show up, he wore a black suit, and matching pants, a white shirt, and green tie.**

**"****Hey Breezy, what do you think?" Yang had walked, more like ****_sauntered _****over, Ryu took one look at her and approximately half of his brain instantaneously shut off.**

**Shaking his head vigorously to clear it Ryu answered her with complete sincerity. "You look gorgeous, Yang." And she did, in a low cut, ankle length gold dress with a slit up the left side from ankle to mid thigh, and gold high heeled sandals, her waist length wavy blond hair fell in a golden cascade, framing her perfect figure, beautiful face, mischievous smile, and twinkling lilac eyes, she wore no make up, not that she needed it, in Ryu's opinion there was no need to improve on perfection.**

**"****Thanks, you clean up pretty nicely yourself, Handsome." Yang linked Ryu's offered right arm in her left and they walked onto the airship, talking about their teams' latest antics, Weiss was pissed at Yang for hiding her favorite hairbrush, Blake had taken to spending time on the roof because Weiss was being so unmanageable, and Laura and Troy had started a prank war, currently, Laura was on top after she glued Troy to a chair, and hid his weapon, Yang laughed uproariously and said that she'd wished Laura had recorded it.**

**"****She probably did, you'd have to ask her."**

**"****Oh, believe me Breezy, I will."**

**When the airship landed the couple went and retrieved Aeolus, Yang got on behind Ryu and wrapped her arms tightly around his midsection as Ryu drove to the restaurant Dewilde's founded by Richard Dewilde, a famous chef from Mistral, the restaurant was famous for excellent food and a romantic atmosphere, including a live string quartet and a dance floor, needless to say the reservation, and the food prices, were enough to leave a large dent in Ryu's bank account. Once inside, Ryu asked for the Kawisaka reservation and they were directed to a small private alcove lit by candlelight.**

**The couple sat across from each other and a few minutes later the waiter showed up with menus and for a few minutes they examined the menus in silence, when they'd decided on their meals Ryu signaled the waiter and they made their orders, Ryu got baked salmon and wild rice with fresh greens and a glass of water, Yang got spaghetti bolognese and a People like Grapes soda.**

**"****I'll never understand how you can drink that stuff." Ryu said, in mild amazement.**

**Yang shrugged. "It tastes good, that's all I really need to know."**

**"****Okay, fine, though how your teeth are in such perfect shape after drinking that sugary crap all your life is a mystery."**

**"****I have good genes."**

**"****Yeah, you do."**

**Yang grinned at him. They exchanged small talk until their food arrived, then they ate slowly, enjoying the food and each other's company. At some point during their dinner they started holding hands over the table, and when they were finished eating Ryu got up and guided Yang onto the dance floor, which had two other couples already revolving to the slow music, pulling his girlfriend into his arms Ryu waited as she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck and they began to sway and revolve on the spot.**

**"****So..." Yang was looking up into Ryu's eyes. "Why did you choose to take us here for our first date?"**

**"****I wanted it to be memorable, something unusual for you, I would guess that most guys you've gone out with in the past took you to a club, the mall, or a movie , or maybe a cheap restaurant."**

**"****There were a few exceptions, but that's the majority of them, yeah, and definitely none of them ever took me to a fancy five star restaurant."**

**"****Well, you're worth the expense, every single Lien, and far, far more importantly, you're worth the effort."**

**"****Thanks Samurai Boy, that was pretty sweet of you."**

**"****It's true." Yang rested her head on his shoulder and they danced in silence. When the song ended Ryu signaled for the check, he paid it and left a tip, then they walked out into the night, it had started to rain, and Yang began holding her arms above her head to protect her hair, only to find Ryu holding his jacket over her head as they headed back to his motorcycle.**

**"****Thanks Breezy, but now you're going to get soaked."**

**"****I was going to be soaked anyway, at least this way we can try to preserve your hair, I know you're really protective of it, and your happiness is worth more to me than trying to stay a little less wet, once we get to Aeolus, you can put on your helmet under here, then the helmet can keep your hair mostly dry, and you wear this, maybe it'll help keep your dress from getting totally soaked, okay?"**

**"****Okay." Yang stood on tiptoes and kissed her boyfriend on the cheek. "Thank you."**

**"****No problem." Ryu assured her. Once Yang had her helmet on, and her waves of golden hair gathered up under the helmet, they mounted the bike and took off.**

**At the first street light another biker pulled up next to the couple, he wore a black and purple jumpsuit, and his helmet's faceplate was darkened, the biker had two katanas strapped to his back, which he drew and connected them side by side, blades parallel, and pointed the joined blades at Ryu and Yang, purple sparks of electricity began gathering between the blades, both Hunters in training activated their auras as force fields, the two fields blended together as the purple lightning bolt shot from the joined swords and spattered against the combined auras of Ryu and Yang, Ryu gunned Aeolus and took off as fast as possible, running the red light, the wind samurai wove between cars and trucks, their lightning shooting attacker in hot pursuit.**

**"****Yang! Take my Scroll and call for backup, I can buy us some time if he catches us, but it's not going to be very much."**

**"****Ryu, what are you planning on doing? This guy's armed, you're not, how do you plan on holding him until backup gets to us?"**

**""****Like this." Ryu flipped a switch on Aeolus and a pair of small storage hatches opened next to the handlebars, inside one was a sheathed wakizashi with a rectangular metal panel in the hilt, the other held three vials of green Dust. "Yang, take the handlebars for a second, I need to prepare." Yang reached around Ryu and took over steering the motorcycle, Ryu stuck two of the vials up his sleeves and opened the panel on the wakizashi's hilt revealing a rectangular hole which he filled by snapping the third vial in and closing the panel, Ryu took the handlebars back, and turned them down an abandoned street, their pursuer was fast behind them, unexpectedly, Ryu turned Aeolus to face the other rider, who shot another lightning bolt at them, Ryu drew the short blade, channeled his aura into it and sliced the bolt out of the air with an arc of green glowing wind, Yang had fished Ryu's Scroll from his pocket and was speed dialing Ruby. The sword wielder separated his blades and spun them once, he sheathed one. Ryu sheathed his weapon, and both swordsmen prepared to charge.**

**"****Yang, get off, you're unarmed, and you need to stay on the line so that they can track our location and get here as fast as possible."**

**Yang hugged him quickly from behind and muttered. "Don't you ****_dare _****die on me Samurai Boy, I plan on sticking with you for a ****_very_****long time, and I won't have you ruining my plans by getting yourself killed, got it?"**

**Ryu didn't dare take his eyes off his opponent, but he smiled. "I got it Yang."**

**Yang got off the motorcycle and started to fill her sister and leader in on the situation, while Ryu and his opponent drove forward in the pouring rain, like jousting knights, minus the lances, and on motorcycles. Ryu drew his sword and as they passed each other Ryu jumped off and tackled the other rider off of his bike, the purple and black clad biker used their momentum to kick Ryu off of him, the wind samurai flipped in mid air and landed in a skid mostly on his feet, then he charged his opponent, who'd drawn his katanas and met the charge with a spinning slash, both blades held parallel to the ground at chest height, Ryu activated his Semblance and, moving with inhuman speed, ducked the strike entirely, his short sword aimed straight for his opponent's midsection, until the twin sword fighter's foot flashed up to kick Ryu in the jaw, sending the wind samurai staggering backward, Ryu's mind raced. ****_That kick was too fast for me to dodge, even with my Semblance active, which means that somehow he can keep up with my Semblance. _****The lightning swordsman attacked, a sword sweeping in from the right and the left, Ryu's wakizashi caught the right sword, and the sheath knocked the left sword away, when the wakizashi came into contact with the katana a jolt of electricity ran down Ryu's arm, but the determined samurai ignored the pain and lashed out with his right foot, his opponent jumped back, and Ryu sheathed his blade, lowered into his ready stance, knees bent, left hand gripping his sheathed sword, right hand hovering over the hilt, the enemy charged, sparks sizzling off of his blades, Iaido was originally meant to counter ambushes at melee range, and the first strike ever invented for the fighting style had been a simple defensive slash meant to kill a charging enemy in one hit, as the dual wielder approached Ryu, he executed that slash, the wakizashi was far too short to be effective for any Iaido techniques, however, it still contained wind Dust in it's hilt, and as the blade flashed out of it's sheath, far short of it's target, an arc of green, razor sharp wind flew outward at waist height, Ryu sheathed his blade and ejected the empty Dust vial, using his Semblance speed, Ryu replaced the vial with one from his left sleeve as the swordsman jumped over the wind slice, and landed in front of Ryu, his counteroffensive putting the lightly armed samurai on the defencive, where he was at a significant disadvantage, Ryu received several small cuts, though his aura stopped the worst of them, his defences simply weren't enough, so Ryu took a risk, he abandoned any defence and sheathed his short sword, he received three serious slashes as he struck, the green glowing wakizashi slashed across the dual wielder's chest, and left behind nothing but a shallow gash, under his helmet the dual wielder laughed, it was a loud, crazy laugh.**

**"****Aww, is the famous wind samurai done already? I know you don't have your real weapon, and you're not fighting at your best, but this is pathetic, it's almost like you ****_want_****me to kill you." Ryu didn't respond except to growl and try to stab his enemy, who knocked the blade from his hand.**

**"****That's it, isn't it!? You want to die!" The swordsman's voice had gone from mocking, to astonished, before his laugh started up again.**

**"****Hahahahahaha! Oh! This is just too good! A Huntsman who doesn't include survival into his battle plans! And Ozpin made ****_you _****the leader of your team? Probably thought that if you had to plan for other people you'd be forced to keep them alive, and you'd try to make sure that their leader doesn't die on them, but put you in a serious fight alone, and you go right back to throwing yourself onto your opponent's weapon. I wonder... Would you be so quick to kill yourself if I told you that after I'm done with you, I'll be going after that hot little piece of ass you've got, I wonder how she'd react if I told her that her boyfriend was so pathetic he didn't even try to fight back, probably try to take me herself, not that I mind that, I like when they're fiery, makes it so much more fun when the finally break."**

**Ryu's body began glowing green, his eyes went flat and lifeless, and his expression blank. "You're right, I wasn't really aware of it before, but I don't really care if you kill me, however..." The wind samurai vanished into thin air, reappearing only long enough to pick up his blade, and vanish again as he charged his opponent.**

**"****Nobody threatens Yang, ****_ever_****." Ryu was holding his blade in a reversed grip when the enemy blocked his first strike, a green blast of wind shattered a three inch wide crack in the faceplate on the swordsman's helmet, revealing a single violet eye, and the corner of a grinning mouth.**

**"****Now ****_that's _****more like it! I finally got you nice and mad! Now show me what you've got wind samurai!" Purple light began spilling from his body as his eagerness got the better of him, green and purple sparks began showering everywhere as their swords and auras clashed, purple lightning and green wind exploded from the combatants, they were both moving too fast for Yang, who had finished calling in Teams RWBY, JNPR, and RLTN, and started punching in the codes for their rocket lockers, to follow, a few seconds later, both lockers crashed side by side into the street they were standing on, Yang opened hers and kicked off her heels, taking her boots, and the extra pair of socks out, she pulled them on, then she clipped Ember Celica to her wrists, opened Ryu's locker, and pulled Wind's Fang and Wind's Claw out.**

**"****Ryu! Sword!" Yang yelled, trusting her boyfriend to understand, she tossed the sheathed ninjato through the air and activated Ember Celica, the rain around her began steaming as it evaporated on contact with her body, firing her gauntlets behind her, Yang launched herself into the fray as Ryu disengaged, dropped his wakizashi, and snatched his ****_true_****weapons out of the air, in the fight, the enemy's aura changed as he faced Yang, turning from purple light, to sparks of purple electricity, his eyes began to glow, and under his helmet, his grin widened, Yang threw a right hook, which was turned aside by the enemy's left sword, the blond boxer's face was filled with fury as she unleashed a blazing flurry of strikes, each one connected, until a left cross sent him flying, and knocked his helmet off, unfortunately, the fight wasn't over, the purple haired young man, and he was clearly only a couple of years older than Ryu and Yang, staggered to his feet, a trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth, he looked like he'd just been pummeled by exploding hammers, which was basically what had really happened, but he was smiling a mad grin, the electrical sparks surrounding his body darkened to purple edged black, his katanas surrounded by purple-black lightning, as Ryu joined his girlfriend, neither fighter waited to see what he was going to do next, they charged. The purple haired guy vanished, like Ryu would while using his Semblance, Ryu followed suit, and the two clashed, however, that single meeting of blades was enough to send Ryu flying through the wall of the building behind him, it was an office building, it felt like getting hit by Yang with her Semblance active. ****_He's mimicking our Semblances. _****Ryu realized that the only way to beat this guy was single combat, he hadn't started copying Yang's Semblance until she was almost about to hit him, which meant that he probably couldn't until she'd gotten close enough, the more people who fought this guy the stronger he got, so the best course of action would be to have one person engage him in melee combat, and have someone else attack from a distance, out of range of his Semblance, Ryu ran/limped to the hole in the building's wall, and saw the enemy fighting Yang, who had figured out from seeing Ryu getting sent flying that he had gotten much stronger for some reason, so Yang was busy dodging his strikes, which consistently left craters in the street.**

**"****Yang, he's copying your Semblance, get away from him and he should lose it, then I fight him while you stay back and shoot, my Semblance is easier to counter."**

**"****Take him down Breezy." Yang blasted herself backwards, away from the enemy, who charged after her, only to be brought up short as a vertical arc of compressed wind flew past his face, then Ryu Kawisaka appeared in front of him and unleashed a hurricane of blindingly fast slashes, the copycat fighter's aura had returned to normal purple light, Ryu's theory had been right, once Yang got too far away he lost her Semblance, though that meant that his other theory was true, he was now copying Ryu's speed, which he used to full effect in defending against Ryu's barrage of slashes, but he wasn't expecting the loud crack of Wind's Claw launching a disk into his left arm, the metal circle embedded itself in his bicep and as they kept fighting his left arm began to gradually slow down, his left katana was just slightly less quick to react, however he managed to halt Ryu's forward momentum by punching one of his wounds, the wind samurai staggered backward, his right hand instinctively raising to the slash on the left side of his ribs, using his sheathed weapon, Ryu managed to fend off a flurry of slashes, which ended when the left katana was forced to deflect a ranged shell from Yang's gauntlet, then another, before Ryu struck again, focusing on the enemy's weakening left side. Suddenly, Ryu felt as if ropes were wrapping around his limbs, he couldn't move, and from the yells behind him, ge figured Yang was in a similar situation, Ryu looked up at his right arm, and saw a shadow wrapped around the limb, holding it immobile, somebody was using shadow Dust, and it wasn't the biker, who suddenly became furious.**

**"****Maroon! You bitch! I had them, your interference wasn't necessary!"**

**A dark haired young woman wearing a black dress and full face mask literally strode out of the shadows, her voice was silky, and as cold and sharp as a frozen knife.**

**"****My name is Dark Goddess, Lightning, remember that, and you should be a bit more grateful, these two nearly had you, and in another two minutes their friends will arrive. Come, Lightning, Blue wants to talk about you attacking the targets before schedule, although..." The masked woman looked at Ryu, bound and helpless, and Ryu could almost feel the smile forming under her mask.**

**"****It would be a shame to waste such an opportunity..." A black knife appeared in her hand with a puff of smoke, and she stalked over to where Ryu was, and without a word, drove the knife into his gut.**

**"****You're lucky I don't kill anyone without a little time to do it properly, but perhaps we'll get lucky and you'll bleed out before anyone can save you, I guess we'll just have to leave it up to Lady Luck, won't we? Goodbye, Ryu Kawisaka, it was... A pleasure to meet you."**

**Ryu blacked out, with Yang's scream of despair ringing in his ears.**

* * *

**(Author's note: here's my next chapter, please read, enjoy, and review.)**


	14. Chapter 14

Day 31 part one: Wake up call

The first thing Ryu was aware of was bright light, gradually the world became more focused, until he could recognise his surroundings, he was in the school infirmary, it was morning, and he was in a lot of pain. Turning his head, the injured Wind Samurai saw Yang, the blond brawler was asleep in a chair next to his bed, Ryu let her sleep.

Ryu sank deep into his thoughts, Lightning's words had showed him something about himself that he hadn't been aware of: he wanted to die, he blamed himself for Serenity's death, and for years he had wanted nothing more than to die fighting, trying to make up for letting his mother figure die by sacrificing his life for others.

"Don't go..." Yang was talking in her sleep, whimpering. "Mom, don't leave me..."

Those three words, "don't leave me" sent a shard of ice through his chest along with yet another realization: he was the most selfish prick on the face of Remnant, here he was, trying to get himself killed, and not even thinking about how it would affect the people he cared for, especially Yang, all her life, Yang had suffered from loss and hardship, Summer died, then her father broke down, and she learned that her birth mother had walked out on her practically as soon as she'd been capable of walking after giving birth, then she'd had to raise Ruby nearly by herself, and then she'd gone to combat school and worked her butt off in order to get accepted into Beacon, and once she'd made it to Beacon, she'd met Ryu, and they'd gotten into a relationship, and if he'd gotten what he'd wanted, that would have put her through yet another agonizing loss, and he just couldn't do that to her, he'd be damned if he was the cause of more pain for the girl he loved.

"Yang, it's okay, I'm here for you." Ryu reached out and took hold of one of Yang's hands. "I promise, I won't leave you." Yang was apparently a heavy sleeper, because she didn't wake up, though her hands gripped Ryu's hand tightly, they were soft and strong, and if it had been anyone else, Ryu would have called the heat coming off them feverish, but Yang's body temperature was always higher than normal, a side effect of her fire influenced aura and Semblance, her expression became calm, only one word escaped her lips. "Ryu." He resolved to keep that promise, because he now had a reason to live: the fiery, gorgeous, passionate, strong willed, and mischievous blonde brawler sitting beside his hospital bed, he couldn't hurt her like that, it just wasn't possible for him to willingly cause this amazing young woman harm.

Ryu allowed the comfortable bed and the warm presence of Yang at his bedside lull him to sleep, but like Yang, his dreams were filled with the woman he'd lost, the one he'd known as the closest thing to a mother he could remember having, but for once, he wasn't seeing the scenes of her death replayed over and over again, which was what happened most of the times Serenity was in his dreams, no, this vision was of two years before that, Adam had just helped him forge Wind's Fang, and eleven year old Ryu wanted to show his new sword to Serenity.

"_Serenity! Serenity! Look at what we made!" Ryu, the real one, watched as his eleven year old self ran over to a lovely black haired woman with a sheathed sword clutched in his hands, the woman raised her hand, and the eleven year old Ryu slowed to a stop._

"_Ryu, what did I tell you last time you ran through this house with a sword?"_

_The eleven year old hung his head. "Don't run with weapons in the house."_

_The scene faded away, and dozens of other scenes, memories of Serenity Taurus took its place, until they faded away and Ryu was simply floating in black emptiness. Serenity's voice echoed slightly as it spoke from the darkness._

"_You've carried the pain of my death for far too long, it wasn't your fault, Ryu, it's time to let go, it's time to live."_

Ryu woke up, something soft was pressed to his fingers, Yang was awake and pressing her lips to his fingers.

"Worried about me?" Ryu joked.

Yang's eyes turned red, her hands gripped his so tightly it hurt, her voice was angry.

"Of course I was worried about you, the doctors said that you almost _died_, I had to watch as that _bitch_ stabbed you, I thought you _were_ dead for a while, don't _ever_ do that to me again." Tears were forming in the corners of those crimson eyes.

"I won't." Ryu managed to painfully raise himself up enough to look Yang in the eyes.

Yang let go of Ryu's hand threw her arms around his chest, and buried her face in the spot where his neck and shoulder met, Ryu reached up to hug her.

"If you had died, I wouldn't have been able to take it, I couldn't handle it if someone else I love died." Ryu was shocked, Yang had, up to this point, scrupulously avoided the "L-word"

"Y-you love me?"

Yang's grip on his chest tightened but she raised her head to look into his eyes, hers had returned to their natural lilac.

"Yes, I love you."

"I love you too, Yang." The blonde brawler leaned forward and pressed a soft, lingering kiss on his mouth.

"I won't let you die on me, Samurai Boy, because you are _mine_, and I'm not going to ever let go of you." Ryu examined his girlfriend's face, she looked very tired, she also looked like she hadn't left the chair she was sitting in for at least a day, but her eyes were filled with determination.

"How long was I out?"

"Three days."

"And how much sleep have you gotten since I was brought here?"

Yang's eyes flicked from his face to the clock on the wall, then back to hungrily taking in his appearance. "About two hours."

Ryu raised his sheets, he was dressed in a hospital gown, and he felt the bandages on his midsection, his wound sent a sharp pain through his body as he raised his arm to lift the sheets. "Get in." He demanded.

Yang didn't object, she was too tired, she just pulled her boots off and climbed under the covers, once Ryu let the covers down, he slid his arm under her and pulled her close, Yang rested her head against his shoulder, and draped an arm over his chest, she snuggled right up against him, and fell immediately asleep.

Ryu lay there for several minutes, feeling the light, feathery breath of his girlfriend against the side of his neck, and enjoying having her pressed against him, he watched her peacefully sleeping face as he stroked her hair and whispered reassurances into Yang's ear.

* * *

(Author's Note: here it is, the start of Ryu's metamorphosis, he's been unconsciously holding back this entire time, without even being aware of it, in both his fighting, and his personal interactions, but now that he actually wants to live, he'll stop.)


	15. Chapter 15

**Day 31, part two: Troy**

**At twelve thirty, Troy and Blake Belladonna decide to check on their partners, Yang had refused to leave the infirmary the entire time Ryu was unconscious, she'd thrown a nurse out the door for trying to make her return to her dorm, nobody else argued with her choice to stay, and Ryu had been unconscious the last time they'd gone to see him.**

**The fraternal Faunus twins entered the infirmary to see Ryu awake, and Yang fast asleep in his arms. Ryu saw them and pressed a finger to his lips, indicating silence, before pointing to the sleeping girl at his side. Blake nodded, but Troy couldn't help but pull his Scroll out and snap a picture, his leader shot him a death glare, but didn't dare move or speak for fear of waking his girlfriend, he settled for flipping Troy the bird, Troy smirked, he finally had teasing material on Yang.**

**Day 31 part three: Yang**

**Yang woke up feeling at peace, she recognized the strong arms wrapped around her torso holding her against a lean, hard muscled chest in a hospital gown, pushing the collar of his hospital gown aside, Yang pressed a kiss to Ryu's exposed pectoral.**

**"****Good morning Samurai Boy, I hope you didn't pull any funny business while I was asleep."**

**"'****Morning, Yang, though it's more like afternoon, and no, I didn't."**

**Yang shrugged. "Your loss." She teased, though she was inwardly grateful to Ryu for being a gentleman, she still liked the color his face turned when her teasing got to him, like it had just then.**

**Yang looked up at her boyfriend's face, she was pleasantly surprised, he had a relaxed smile on his face, though his ears were still a little red, those forest green eyes twinkled with a vigor that hadn't been there before, Yang hadn't even noticed the lack until it ended, it was like looking at a whole new person, a happier, livelier, ****_hotter _****version of Ryu. Nothing about his features changed, but a kind of invisible weight had lifted from his face, and it left him free to finally stop holding himself inside, letting his kindness, strength, and determination shine through, where before there had been a thin veil of sadness that hid this version of Ryu from the world. Yang's thoughts matched the satisfied smile forming on her lips. ****_Oh, Momma, Yang like! _****This unburdened wind samurai's slight smile gave his mouth a sexy tilt that made Yang tremble in places that nobody else had ever managed to reach, and the angle showed a faint scar below his lip that she'd never noticed before, his dark green hair was messy, and made the blond brawler want to run her fingers through that forest-colored tangle. His handsome face was glowing with happiness, and Yang knew that it was because he was with ****_her _****that he was so happy, talk about a turn on. Ryu had gone from mostly closed off, to an open book, literally within a matter of hours, and just looking into his eyes told her what he was feeling: love, Yang knew without a hint of doubt that he loved her, deeply.**

**"****What the hell happened, Breezy?"**

**Confusion clouded his eyes. "What do you mean?"**

**"****I mean, this morning you had this weight on your shoulders, you've had that weight since i met you, but now, for the first time it's totally gone, you're like a totally new person, don't get me wrong, it's a ****_good _****change, I'm just wondering what brought it on?"**

**"****You did." ****_Well now_****, Yang hadn't been expecting ****_that _****answer. A warmth bloomed in her stomach.**

**"****What do you mean?"**

**"****I mean, I have a reason to fight now, before I was purposeless, just wandering around aimlessly, the only reason I entered Beacon is because that's what Master told me to do, but now, I have a reason to be here: You. My team, and my friends are all good reasons, but you're my main reason."**

**"****And you didn't figure this out before? I knew you could be a little dense, but that's pretty bad, even for you."**

**"****I know." There was that infuriating calm in the face of her teasing that her Samurai Boy had been developing since just before the fight with Torchwick, but Yang couldn't be annoyed at him right now, she was still buzzing with happiness at the idea that she was the one responsible for this drastic positive change in Ryu's personality.**

**Day 31 Part 3.1: Ryu**

**Ryu was released from the infirmary at eight with instructions not to engage in strenuous activity for two more days, after she'd woken up, Yang had gone back to her dorm, showered, and changed into casual clothes, as it was the weekend, curfew had been extended to ten, the couple spent the rest of the day together. At ten they went to their Dorms and went to sleep.**

**Day 32 Part 1: Changes**

**Ryu woke up at five thirty, it was Sunday, so Ryu decided to let his team sleep. After performing his daily exercise, Ryu walked out of the dormitory and headed to the lockers, it was almost an hour before breakfast would be served, and nobody else was up, so Ryu went to the equipment lockers and retrieved his weapons, the nurse had told him not to engage in any strenuous activity, but the wind samurai knew that he needed to keep himself in shape, so he headed to the training room. **

**Leaning his weapons against the wall, Ryu began using the gym equipment, he was careful to keep his exercises well below his limits, stopping whenever he felt his wounds react to the exercise. Once he'd worked out to his satisfaction, he retrieved his sheathed sword, and began moving through the katas: slow, exaggerated movements meant to simulate movement in actual combat, as far as Ryu knew all Eastern sword styles had at least one set of katas, and Iaido was somewhat unique, in that almost every single one of it's katas began, and ended, with the sword in it's sheath.**

**"****It's been a while since we've trained together, hasn't it, Ryu?" Pyrrha Nikos was standing in the doorway. "It appears that you've gotten much better since I last saw you."**

**"****Yeah, but since the last time you saw me I was unconscious in a hospital bed, that's not saying much."**

**Pyrrha laughed. "True, but I was talking about our last Combat Class, you seem much more in control of yourself than you were then, when you're recovered why don't we have a rematch? I'm curious to see how you've improved."**

**Ryu grinned at the first real friend he'd ever had. "That sounds like fun, I look forward to it."**

**Pyrrha returned the smile, then she set up eight sparring droids, all set to high difficulty, and proceeded to demolish the robots without using her Semblance once.**

**Ryu had a smile on his face as he flowed through another stance.**

**"****So, Pyrrha, how's Jaune doing?" The red headed amazon nearly stumbled, but she caught herself, and removed the head from the last robot before answering.**

**"****I don't know what you mean." Pyrrha insisted, but Ryu saw the light blush on her cheeks, and his smile widened, ****_so that was how it was_****.**

**"****Don't you? I know you've been training him in swordsmanship, up on that rooftop, under the stars... Alone." Pyrrha's face was almost the same color as her hair, Ryu laughed.**

**"****You've been spending too much time with Yang."**

**"****You can never spend too much time with the person you love, but I will admit that she does seem to be influencing the development of my sense of humor, I'm not entirely convinced that's a good thing, but there's not much I can do about it."**

**"****True, Yang has a tendency to rub off on people, whether they want it or not."**

**"****I know, that girl is a force of nature. It's one of many reasons why I love her."**

**"****I've always been jealous of Yang, she's so strong, I know that I'm probably the better fighter between the two of us, but Yang is far stronger than I am, she's always true to herself, she knows exactly who she is, and she never lets others tell her what to do and who to be, that's more than I can say." Pyrrha admitted to her friend.**

**Ryu looked at the Amazonian Huntress sharply, Pyrrha was shocked to see anger in his forest green eyes. "You're wrong, Pyrrha, you are the most skilled fighter in the first year, you get excellent grades in all your classes, and you won the most competitive junior combat tournament in the world more times than anyone else in it's entire history, most other people in your position would be arrogant, prideful, and vain, corrupted by the fame and adoration. You are the kindest, most humble and sincere person I've ever met, you are not weaker than Yang, you just have different forms of strength, Yang bulls through life, and refuses to let her personality be affected by her troubles, she'll always meet trouble with a grin and a bad joke, you let life wash over you, you take your experiences in, and let them create a scaffolding around your soul, the worse things get, the stronger you become, your baseline personality will always be that of a Huntress, a hero, you love helping others, and rarely accept help for yourself, not out of pride, but because you don't want to put more trouble on other people, never think you aren't strong."**

**Pyrrha's face returned to the same tomato red as her hair, and she turned away from Ryu.**

**"****Thank you, if you don't mind me asking, you are acting much differently than you ever have since I've known you, why?"**

**A sad smile tugged at Ryu's mouth. "I decided I want to live." Before Pyrrha could ask what he meant, Ryu walked out of the training room.**

**Day 32, part 1.1: Pyrrha**

**Pyrrha watched Ryu walk away, his last words before leaving troubled her, ****"****_I decided I want to live." _****That suggested that he hadn't wanted to live before the change, not for the first time, Pyrrha cursed Ryu's secretiveness, she knew very little about his past, other than that he was an orphan who'd been raised by a Faunus named Adam who taught him how to fight and how to live. She also knew that something had gone bad, but he never talked about what it was, except that it had something to do with the death of Adam's wife, but that was all she'd gotten out of him after the Mistral Regionals. If whatever it had been was bad enough that he'd wanted to die to escape it Pyrrha wished that he'd told her about it, that he'd let her help him, but he hadn't, though he had evidently resolved his problem on his own, though Pyrrha suspected a certain blond fistfighter had something to do with his recovery.**

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**(Author's Note: Here's chapter fifteen please, read, review, and enjoy.)**


	16. Chapter 16

Day 32, part 1.2: Jaune

Jaune Arc, the blond, bumbling leader of Team JNPR woke up feeling refreshed. He'd gone to bed with aches and bruises all over from last night's training session with Pyrrha. The Amazonian fighter had pushed him hard. Jaune could feel his skills growing. He'd actually managed to consistently last a full minute each time they sparred. He lost every time of course, but he hadn't expected to even come close to beating his partner. She was a famous tournament fighter, and he was a clumsy idiot who'd had to sneak into Beacon, where, for some incomprehensible reason he had been made leader of his team.

Jaune, despite Pyrrha's constant reassurance that Ozpin had known what he was doing when he'd been appointing leaders, still wasn't sure of it. The blond knight was aware that he had a gift for strategy, but his other skills were subpar at best. His equipment was outdated, and even though his aura was supposed to be huge, he had no idea how to use it. He didn't know his Semblance, and to make matters worse, his teammates and his friends were all exceptional, even by Beacon standards, Jaune began listing his friends' accomplishments in his head. Pyrrha was a famous tournament champion, Ruby was a prodigy who had been let in two years early, and was the best at weapon forging and maintenance in the first year class. Yang was universally regarded as the second best fighter after Pyrrha. Weiss was a Dust expert, and an exceptional fighter besides. Blake was mysterious, but the ninja girl was unmatched in stealth. Ren and Nora were the most effective duo in partner combat, and each were impressive in their own right. Ren's mastery of his aura was unmatched by most second year students, and people had a tendency to wet themselves upon hearing that they were slated to fight Nora. Ryu was the fastest sword fighter in the history of the school's first year class, and Natalie had broken the sharpshooting accuracy record three time in the month they'd been at the school. All Jaune had was a large aura that he didn't know how to use and a head for strategy.

Jaune shook his head to clear it of his self-pity, he had made up his mind to catch up to his friends, in skill and in confidence, which meant that he needed to stop beating himself up about his incompetence; he just needed to get better. Jaune looked around his team's room. Nora's bedspace looked like a disaster area. Random junk, most of it pink, was scattered around the bed including: two hairbrushes, a pillow, several stuffed animals, most notably, a pink sloth named Baron Slinky the Awesome, and a multitude of candy wrappers. The bubbly hammer wielder herself was sprawled diagonally across the bed, her sheets kicked everywhere. Nora was snoring like an Ursa Major, occasionally the loud noise was interrupted by mutterings, "Ren" "Pancakes" and "Nora smash!" being commonly recurring words that Jaune understood. The rest was mostly grunts and snuffles. Ren was a stark contrast to his best friend. The slim young man lay perfectly still. His bed space was even more spartan than Pyrrha's, whose only decorations had been a family photo. Speaking of Pyrrha, where was she? The blond leader had just noticed that the red-haired Spartan's bed was empty and neatly made. Milo and Akouo, Pyrrha's spear/sword/rifle, and her shield, were missing, so Jaune figured that the beautiful warrior had gone for some early training.

The blond knight got up quietly to avoid waking up his teammates, gathered his gear, and headed to the men's shower at the end of the hall. When he got out, dressed in his hoodie and ripped jeans, with his chestplate on and Crocea Mors strapped to his belt in it's shield/sheath, Jaune headed to the training room. With any luck Pyrrha would be there; she could help him train. In the back of his head Jaune knew that there was another reason he wanted to see his gorgeous partner, but he refused to give that reason a voice. He wasn't dumb enough to believe for a second that he'd ever have a chance at... _No, I can't think about her like that, she's my partner, and she's _WAY _out of my league. Why would she want a hopeless fraud with no skill? _Jaune knew that while Pyrrha was always nice to him, it didn't mean anything. She was the nicest person he knew, and she was kind to almost everyone. As much as Jaune wished that Pyrrha's feelings for him extended past friendship, he knew that it was impossible.

Jaune suddenly realized that his thoughts had carried him all the way to the training room. Ryu was coming out, the first thing Jaune noticed was that the samurai type team leader had changed, Jaune didn't know how, or what, but there was something different about the blond knight's fellow leader. Cerulean eyes met forest green, then Ryu smiled at Jaune and saluted him with the hilt of his sheathed sword as he walked off down the hall. Jaune shrugged, then he entered the training area to find Pyrrha practicing with Milo in spear form.

"Hey Pyr." The Huntress in question turned, and the instant her eyes settled on her partner the emerald orbs lit up with a smile that spread across her face, and nearly stopped Jaune's heart, he couldn't help but return the smile, his face showing the pure joy he felt in the presence of his partner.

"Hello Jaune, I'm glad you came down to practice on your own, if you want, we could have an impromptu training session." Pyrrha's calm voice centered the bumbling team leader.

"Yeah Pyr, that sounds like a great idea, Dust knows I need the practice." The last part came out more bitter than he'd intended.

"Jaune, everyone needs practice, to improve new skills or keep old ones from getting rusty. You are learning faster than I ever did when I started formal training, you're a natural leader and you've already got above average aura control, even with your huge aura, which should be extremely difficult to control, you aren't nearly the failure you think you are, sure, you lack the basic skills of other Hunter students, but you're learning quickly, one day you'll surpass all of us, I'm sure."

Jaune didn't believe her, but it still felt good to be complimented like that by his partner and mentor. "Thanks Pyrrha, you're the best partner ever." He didn't notice when she turned her head to hide the fact that her face had turned the same shade of tomato red as her hair.

The partners moved to the sparring ring in the center of the room, Pyrrha held Milo in spear form, and left Akouo leaning against the wall, Jaune had Crocea Mors in his right hand, and his shield strapped to his left arm, they circled each other, Jaune's mind was racing, trying to find holes in Pyrrha's defense, but naturally, there were none. Pyrrha hadn't been lying when she'd said Jaune's abilities had improved considerably, their nearly nightly sparring sessions had not only vastly improved his abysmal fighting abilities, but also improved on his greatest strength: strategy. Jaune's eyes took in their surroundings and a plan began to form, raising his sword, Jaune charged with a heavy downward slash, which Pyrrha blocked with the shaft of her spear, only to jump back as Jaune swept his leg at his opponent's, the blonde pressed his advantage, but was brought up short by Milo's needle sharp point, then Pyrrha took control of the fight, the butt of the spear slammed into the knight's stomach, and an armored knee grazed his cheek, causing him to stagger back, Jaune barely managed to lift his shield into the path of Pyrrha's spear blade, but the force knocked him back again, Jaune took three swift hits, then Pyrrha kicked Crocea Mors out of her partner's hand and pressed the tip of her spear against Jaune's throat.

"Very good Jaune, in another month you'll be able to hold your own against most of the students in our class, you probably won't be able to beat most of them, but you'll be able to make a fight of it at least, just remember to keep thinking while you fight, you're an excellent strategist Jaune, but when you're fighting solo you have trouble adjusting to fit the situation, just keep your head and you can make up for a large gap in skill with superior strategy." Pyrrha assured her friend.

"Thanks Pyr, I'll remember to do that."

"Now..." Pyrrha raised her weapon. "Let's do that again."

Day 32 Part 2: Troy's secret

Troy Belladonna was lying to everyone. Every time he smiled, laughed, or cracked a joke, he lied. He lied to make people think he was just a happy-go-lucky cat boy. He lied every time he told others that he didn't know what his Semblance was. He just couldn't afford to let anyone know about it, not even his sister, his own twin, could know about the terrifying power he possessed, he'd applied to Beacon because he figured his power would be best suited to hunting monsters. It was with this in mind that Troy Belladonna stood on the launchpad he'd been launched off of during initiation, the launch button in his hand, he was about to fulfill his purpose, and put his power to use.

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(Author's Note: Here's chapter sixteen, not my best work, but it's just set up for chapter seventeen, and for giving Jaune some more development, please read, enjoy, and review, thank you.)


	17. Chapter 17

Day 32 Part 2.1: Troy

Troy sailed through the air, the cat eared member of Team RLTN tucked his arms in close to his body, and straightened his legs, reducing the air resistance, and causing him to fly farther than he had during initiation, abruptly, a pair of jet black wings with a pair of clawed fingers at the wing joints, exactly like the wings of a Nevermore, sprouted from Troy's back with a surge of red and white laced black aura, the cat Faunus flapped his new wings and brought himself down to the forest floor safely, the instant his boots touched solid ground the wings turned back into aura and retracted into his back. Troy hadn't brought his weapon with him, that would defeat the purpose of even coming to the Emerald Forest, he was here to practice with his Semblance, as well as to put a temporary end to the unnatural urges to use his Semblance at every opportunity, besides, he needed the fuel that Grimm smoke provided his Semblance, several of his forms were running out of time to keep their signatures locked in his aura, after all, they only ever lasted three months.

Troy walked calmly through the forest, he could repress the natural attraction that Creatures of Grimm had to his aura, like moths to a flame, but he didn't repress it, instead he stoked it like the proverbial flame he'd just compared it to.

"My what bright flames you've got Grandma." Troy said to nobody, before finishing the reference as growls began sounding all around him. "The better to attract the moths with, my dear." A grim (ha ha) smile spread across the cat boy's face, a quick sniff with his catlike senses told him he was surrounded by Beowulves, about thirty of them, as well as six Ursa Majors, and fifteen Ursa Minors, and above him, a shriek revealed the presence of two Nevermores, slightly smaller than the Giant Nevermore Team RWBY had killed during initiation, but still quite sizable.

Troy Belladonna, cat Faunus, prankster, and well known chatterbox, stood in the middle of a small horde of Grimm, unarmed, and silently smiling. Red and white laced black aura enveloped Troy completely, and when it vanished the teenager was gone, in his place was a Creeper, a Grimm that stood on two powerful legs with it's squat, black, scaly body covered in patches of bone plates and bony spikes, it had no teeth, but the red patterned bone mask nearly all Grimm sported extended over the top jaw, and a similar bone hook curved from the bottom jaw, forming a cruel beak that was as effective at tearing flesh and crunching bone as any fang filled maw. With a whistling shriek, the Creeper, who had once been Troy Belladonna, charged the closest Beowulf with the surprisingly blinding speed that Creepers were known for, body slamming the beast onto it's back, where the transformed Huntsman's beak closed on the Beowulf's throat, practically severing the head from it's body. Lashing out with it's clawed feet, the Creeper gutted a pair of Beowulves that didn't get out of the way fast enough. As the monsters charged, Troy shifted forms again, becoming a twenty foot long King Taijitu, the massive, sinuous form slithered through the horde, knocking Beowulves out of the way with it's sheer bulk, when an Ursa tried to slash out the Grimm snake's eye on the black half, which was leading, the white head struck the bear monster in the side, and pumped it's poison into the beast's body, just before the teenager in the form of a double ended snake monster was about to be overrun by sheer numbers, he changed form again, this time into a fanged, dog sized grasshopper Grimm known as a Hopper.

Troy the Hopper sprang into the air, changing into his natural form as he landed, red light shone in the young man's amber eyes as he literally stuck his face into the smoke of the dissolving Ursa and breathed it into himself, before shifting into an identical bear monster and charging back into the horde. Troy's powerful paw swipes shattered bones and his claws shredded flesh, a Beowulf got in a claw slash to his side, but it was turned aside by Troy's aura, another flare of Grimm colored aura and Troy changed his form again, this time into an Alpha Beowulf, which roared a challenge, and charged.

* * *

Meanwhile, back at Team RLTN's dorm.

"... Where is Troy? I've called his Scoll a dozen times now, but he's not answering." Ryu Kawisaka was pacing back and forth, concern for his partner etched a line across his forehead, his two female team members watched him with similar concern.

"It's not like him to disappear like this, maybe something's wrong..."

"Or maybe he's hooked up with another of his 'playmates', the guy's got a quarter of the female population of this school on his speed dial, you probably haven't noticed because he's been fairly subtle about it, but he spends a lot of his time out of the Dorm building, you've just been too busy with Blondie to notice." Laura said.

Ryu shot her a look that had the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. "Don't talk about Yang like that, and contrary to your beliefs, I have noticed Troys growing list of lady friends, I just didn't care, what he does in his personal time is his business, but that's not what happened, he left Eternal Dreams, his jacket, and his goggles here, he never goes anywhere without the goggles at least, and his jacket and weapon rarely leave his side unless he's going to class, which is why I'm worried rather than just concluding that he's making out in some private corner of the school with a girl."

"I don't see why you're so worried, Troy's a big boy, he can take care of himself, even unarmed."

Ryu snorted. "Have you seen his hand to hand skills? He's all over the place, he literally fights like an animal, anyone who knows the first thing about real hand to hand would annihilate him, and he doesn't even know his Semblance yet."

Natalie tapped on the wall to get the attention of her teammates, then she held up her Scroll, where she'd typed her message._ That's not true, He does know what his Semblance is, and it's more than enough to protect him in a fight all on it's own, I can only guess he doesn't use it because he's scared about what others would think, and I don't blame him, it's pretty disturbing._ The other two looked at their silent teammate in shock, Laura tried to speak. "How..?"

_My Semblance is Analysis, I can know anything's strengths and weaknesses by looking at them and concentrating, in the case of Humans and Faunas it tells me their Semblance, too, if they have access to it._ Natalie wrote.

"That sounds incredibly useful, why didn't you tell anyone about this before?" Ryu asked.

_Nobody asked._

"Of course..." Ryu facepalmed before asking his second question. "So, what's Troy's Semblance?"

_Grimmshifting._

Back with Troy.

Troy was starting to wear down, he'd torn the Beowulves to pieces, and taken down several Ursai, four Minors and a Major. The Nevermores had finally gotten enough room to begin dive bombing the Grimmshifter, who was having a harder and harder time dodging the giant bird monsters, the various wounds he'd sustained were slowing him down, his aura was so low that it was no longer possible to perform full changes, so he'd changed his legs into Creeper legs, and his arms into those of an Alpha Beowulf, one of the Ursa Majors was larger, older, and by extension, smarter, than it's compatriots, and it had figured out that Troy could renew his shifting abilities by breathing in Grimm smoke in his natural form, every time Troy killed a monster, the intelligent Ursa charged him, forcing him back and away from the smoke the corpse produced, Troy needed to kill that Ursa, now, or he wouldn't survive, he had enough left in him for one more partial transformation, and then the only thing left to him would be to fight for approximately ten minutes until he ran out of aura and was torn to shreds.

Nevermore wings sprouted from Troy's back, and with one powerful flap, the Grimmshifting Faunus boy launched himself at the Ursa, they met in a clash of claws Troy flapped his wings and sent a storm of sharp feathers at the Ursa, but they glanced off it's bone plates. Four Ursa Minors barreled toward him, using his Creeper legs, he leapt over them, landing on the back of one of the middle Ursai, before tearing all four to shreds with his claws. Then he was being forced to take to the air by the intelligent Ursa. Troy decided to call it Yogi as he fired more feathers into the ranks of the Ursa Minors, cutting several down and injuring a couple of others. The remaining five Ursa Minors, and the five other Majors all charged at once, while Yogi held back, almost as if it was assessing the situation, which, Troy realized, was exactly what it was doing, suddenly, Yogi stood on it's hind legs and roared, a whooshing noise was the only warning Troy got before a Nevermore knocked him out of the sky. The cat eared teen crashed into the ground and the Grimm charged, Troy braced himself for death, he wouldn't be able to escape this attack.

Crack! An Ursa Major's head exploded, not Yogi unfortunately, then a hissing noise preceded an arrow sprouting from the eyeball of a Minor Ursa, Troy managed to roll onto his back in time for a second crack! An arc of wind travelling at the speed of a bullet hit a Nevermore at the base of it's wing, slicing straight through the ironlike feathers and removing the wing just above the joint, seconds later another cracking noise heralded another abnormally fast wind blade, which split the remaining Nevermore's head in two, arrows and sniper rounds took out all of the remaining Ursai but Yogi, who'd hightailed it out of there once the first Nevermore was brought down.

"There, now we're even for you saving me during Initiation, Partner." Ryu appeared out of nowhere on the one winged Nevermore's back and stabbed the avian in the brainstem to finish it, Troy's Grimmshifted limbs returned to normal but the cat eared fighter still couldn't move. Troy Belladonna watched as his teammates gathered around him, Ryu and Laura hoisted him up between them.

"How did you find me?" Troy asked

Laura pointed to her eyes. "My Tracker Semblance can let me find anyone I've touched, wherever they are."

"Why aren't you leaving me here? You know what I am. Everyone who has ever seem my Semblance was afraid of me."

Ryu answered. "Troy, as your leader, I order you to shut up, we're your teammates, and I'd like to think we're your friends too, we know you, and we aren't afraid of you, because we have to trust our friends, if we don't, well, I speak from experience when I say loneliness sucks the color out of your life, it leaves you without a reason to live, because there is nothing worse than an empty life, and I won't let you feel that pain again, you've got friends and a sister here, and none of us would judge you for the power you born with."

Laura chimed in. "No kidding Furball, just because that nickname is more accurate than I'd ever imagined doesn't mean you aren't our teammate, besides, if you were gone, who would be left to prank? Nobody else can take a joke but Yang, and I'm not crazy enough to risk damaging her hair with a badly timed prank, she'd put me in the infirmary for a week. So you aren't going anywhere, got it?"

Relief flooded through Troy. "I got it, thank you, all of you." Natalie smiled and patted Troy's shoulder comfortingly.

Day 32 part 3: Unknown Location

"A Grimmshifter has surfaced at Beacon, is this true Cinder?" A cold, rough voice asked the black haired woman from the other end of a Scroll with a blacked out screen.

"Yes, Your Majesty, what are your orders?" Cinder's sultry voice was reverently hushed.

"Eliminate it." The cold voice of His Majesty commanded.

Cinder's burning gold eyes glowed, and her perfectly shaped mouth curled in a cruel smirk. "As you command, My King."

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(Author's Note: So, Team RLTN's Semblances are all revealed, and Cinder is working for a King, can Teams RWBY, JNPR, and RLTN stop whatever plan this mysterious figure may have, can Pyrrha and Jaune finally realize that they're both crazy about eachother, and what happens now that the mysterious King has put out a kill order on Troy? Find out next time on Dragon... *ahem* sorry, Find out next time on Strengthening ReLaTioNs! Please read, review, and most of all, enjoy, thank you.)


	18. Chapter 18

Day 37 part 1: A dark patch in History

Ryu walked out of his team's dorm grinning in anticipation, though he had been fully recovered from his wounds for two days now, today was the day he'd been looking forward to: the first Combat Class since his recovery, today, for the first time since the Mistral Regionals, Ryu would face Pyrrha again, all through breakfast Ryu was fidgeting and lost in thought, the others were mystified as to the cause of the normally composed Iaidoka's excess energy, neither Ryu nor Pyrrha had told anyone about their rematch, except for Professor Goodwitch of course, they'd had to ask for her permission to arrange their fight during her combat class.

Yang looked at her boyfriend in confusion. "Hey Breezy, you alright? I'm usually the one with energy to burn."

Ryu flashed her an easy smile, ever since he'd resolved to live for the fiery blond's sake, he'd found it easier to smile, as if he'd been storing up happiness over the years, and it was finally being allowed to trickle out, in fact, all of his emotions were more intense than they had been in years, not by alot, but it was noticeable.

"I'm fine Yang, just looking forward to being able to fight again today, because after my absence from the sparring ring for the past week, Goodwitch is sure to set me up against someone today." Yang accepted that with a smile and a nod.

"Hey, maybe it'll be against me, we could finally settle our tie." The blond brawler smiled as she made that suggestion. Ryu returned the smile, _sorry Yang, today's rematch won't be against you, but you're definitely going to demand your turn at a rematch afterwards, you never could resist a challenge._ The Wind Samurai thought as he looked into his girlfriend's lilac eyes.

Their first class that day was History of Remnant, they'd finished with the Faunus Rights Revolution, and were moving on to the Grimm Wars, today's topic was particularly attention getting, and nobody was sleeping or messing around after it was announced by Dr. Oobleck: The Grimm Kings.

Once the whispers died down, Dr. Oobleck began his lecture in his usual caffeine induced hyperspeed. "Today's subject is a rather disturbing one, and one that mostly no one remembers, this is because all records of the Kings were taken by Huntsmen and Huntresses of the time and destroyed, leaving only a few materials on these frankly terrifying beings to remain." Dr. Oobleck took a slurp of coffee and zipped to the front row of the lecture hall.

"Though few records exist, those few that do leave no doubt, the nine Kings of Grimm exist, and they have been responsible for the near destruction of ensouled life on this planet, at least twice that we know of."

A student with blue hair and a tattoo bisecting his left eyelid from forehead to cheekbone raised his hand, Oobleck zoomed over to the young man.

"Mr. Fernandes, you have a question?"

"Yes Dr. Oobleck, if these Grimm Kings were so dangerous, why did the Hunters of the time destroy all the records of their existences? Weren't they worried that new Kings would turn up?"

"My boy, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that they are dead, remember, I said that the Kings _exist_, not that they _existed_, the Grimm Kings are very much alive, each one is sealed away, but the Hunters of the time had no way to kill such powerful beings, so they settled for imprisoning them in places where their unusual, and extremely powerful, abilities would be rendered useless, the records were destroyed in an attempt to erase the Kings from the memory of man and Faunus so that nobody would ever be tempted to find the prisons, they kept only enough knowledge on these beings to provide their descendants with usable information on the creatures, should one, or Dust forbid, _all_ of them were to break out of their cages, this course is simply to provide basic information on the Kings as a whole, so that is what I will do!" Oobleck zoomed once around his classroom, before stopping to slurp more coffee, and continue his lecture.

"The first known appearance of the Kings was during the First Grimm War, approximately ten thousand years ago. Mankind, both Human and Faunus, were struggling to literally carve out a place in this world, which at the time, was totally overrun with Grimm, as you know, they succeeded in forming the four Kingdoms and beating back the Grimm, at least initially, however, it was at this point that the first of the Kings surfaced, within a month, Mistral had fallen and was completely destroyed, it was in response to this that the first true Hunter organisation was founded. Albert Arc put together a group of eighty of the best warriors in the world, and they split into groups of nine. For obvious reasons, I won't go into what detail we have about the nine battles to seal away the Kings, suffice it to say the nine Kings were locked away at great cost, the only survivor of the endeavor was Albert Arc, who returned to his home in Vale, where he lived out his life with his wife and son, the Arc family has been Vale's most prominent Hunter Families ever since then, and even into the present, as you all may have guessed by now, we have one of Albert's descendants in this class: Jaune Arc." The green haired Doctor zoomed over to stand in front of the young Arc, who looked uncomfortable with the fact that every eye in the room was fixed on him. Ryu felt sorry for his friend, but at the same time he was fascinated, he'd had no idea that Jaune's family was so ancient, it went a long way to explaining why the white knight wanted to become a Huntsman so badly, he had a long legacy to uphold.

Day 37 Part 2: Rematch

After Dr. Oobleck's class came the class Ryu had been waiting for: Combat class. Professor Goodwitch informed Ryu and Pyrrha that their fight would be the last one of the class. So Ryu sat with his team and watched, waiting for his turn.

The last fight came onto the display screen as Professor Goodwitch announced it.

"Ryu Kawisaka vs. Pyrrha Nikos." Both fighters walked into the ring, Pyrrha had Milo and Akouo on her back, and Ryu held Wind's Fang and Wind's Claw in his left hand, they shook hands before taking their positions in the center of the ring, Pyrrha's weapon's leapt into her hands, Milo was in it's xiphos mode, Ryu crouched and hovered his right hand over the hilt of Wind's Fang, while his left thumb hovered over the release button, and his left index finger slid inside Wind's Claw's trigger guard. When Professor Goodwitch gave the signal to begin, Ryu vanished, Pyrrha raised Akouo and caught the high speed kick that would have blasted her off her feet, but Ryu didn't stop there, lifting his other leg, the wind samurai dropped to the ground and attempted to sweep her feet out from under her, but the red haired amazonian jumped over the leg sweep, only to see the point of Wind's Fang heading straight for her face as she fell, Pyrrha's hand and the bronze circlet in her hair both glowed black, as the tournament champion yanked herself backward in midair, Wind's Fang returned to it's sheath, and Pyrrha went on the attack, placing her shield between herself and her opponent, the redhead charged, Milo chopped down at Ryu's head, but was caught by Wind's Fang's hilt, Pyrrha's left knee jabbed at Ryu, who rolled gracefully backwards, coming out of the roll on his feet. Wind's Claw turned aside two slashes from Pyrrha's red and gold sword. They both aimed a kick at eachother at the same time, the two kicks struck eachother and rebounded. Both fighters danced back, then Ryu vanished again, this time a clang sounded as Pyrrha's sword caught Wind's Claw in a swipe. Ryu hadn't yet drawn Wind's Fang, and was still holding his weapons in his left hand, just above the hilt of his sword. Ryu made several more swipes with his sheath, each one Pyrrha dodged, until, rather than attack with the sheath, Ryu drew his sword into a blindingly fast slash, Pyrrha leapt back from the strike, and Ryu could feel the subtle nudge of Pyrrha's Polarity Semblance bumping his blade an inch above his intended target, before Pyrrha shifted her sword into it's spear form and charged again, and it was Ryu who was dodging the tip of Milo's spear form, Ryu turned aside the spear with his right forearm and closed the distance, jabbing with Wind's Fang's hilt, Ryu ducked a slash from Milo in sword form, and had to roll out of the way of Pyrrha's follow up kick, Ryu stopped in mid roll and kicked back and up, catching Pyrrha in the stomach as she charged. The wind samurai tumbled to his feet, and turned to face the amazon, for a second the rivals stood still, they moved at the same time, charging forward, Pyrrha aimed a kick at Ryu, who spun to the left, and jabbed the tip of Wind's Claw at Pyrrha's stomach, aiming for the spot he'd kicked, Pyrrha twisted her hips and Ryu felt another magnetic nudge on his sheath, ensuring that it missed it's target by a hair's breadth, Ryu's foot lashed out just behind his sheath, but Akouo caught the kick in one of it's indents, Ryu created, and then inverted, a small forcefield with his aura against the sole of his outstretched shoe, with a small hop, Ryu planted his other foot on Akouo and pushed off into a back handspring, to land on his feet. Immediately, Ryu vanished in a storm of wind to reappear _behind_ Pyrrha, drawing and slashing at an upwards diagonal, and hitting nothing but a few hairs from her ponytail, Pyrrha managed to duck under the strike, turning, Pyrrha stabbed with Milo's sword form, Ryu barely managed to dodge it, then he vanished in another gust of wind, to appear on the other end of the arena, green light began leaking from Ryu's body, then he began speeding all over the arena, leaving behind dozens of greenish afterimages. Pyrrha's eyes flickered over the afterimages before throwing her shield, Akouo, like a discus, she guided it's flight with her Polarity so that it hit all the images, they all dissipated into thin air, which was when Ryu struck, he was on the tournament champion in a flash, unleashing a barrage of slashes, Milo turned some aside, and Pyrrha dodged or magnetically pushed more away, when the entire arena heard a _click, BANG!_ and a razor sharp metal disk flew from the mouth of Wind's Claw, Pyrrha tried to push the disk away with her Semblance, but it remained unaffected, and a tiny red flash showed where it struck her aura.

"Like them? I made these disks out of a nonmagnetic alloy, just for you." Ryu said, as he ducked Akouo's return to it's owner.

Pyrrha grinned as her shield clicked back onto the bracer on her left forearm. "Not bad, but you won't catch me off guard twice." Pyrrha's weapon shifted into rifle mode and the champion began to open fire on her friend, Ryu didn't even have to activate his Semblance to cut the Dust rounds out of the air, before returning fire with a wind blade, which Pyrrha took on her shield, the impact caused her to stagger back a step, in an instant, Ryu was across the arena floor, and the wind samurai struck Pyrrha's shield again with his sword, then he lashed out with his foot, Pyrrha dodged the kick, then shifted her weapon into spear form and went on the offensive, Wind's Claw deflected a spear thrust, but Akouo slammed into Ryu's face. The slightly stunned wind samurai staggered back, he took a thrust with a blaze of emerald aura automatically materializing to defend him from serious harm, though a shallow cut appeared in his side. Activating his Semblance, Ryu slashed Pyrrha across the torso before she could even lift her shield. They disengaged and clashed again, back and forth they went, striking, dodging and blocking, Ryu sheathed his sword, then he shaped a tornado blade and struck, Pyrrha, who knew from their last fight what the tornado blade could do, rolled beneath Ryu's strike and slashed him across the back, Ryu kicked her in the hip, and struck with the tornado blade, successfully launching her across the arena, to slam into the wall in a flare of red light. Pyrrha staggered to her feet, then both fighters charged, swords at the ready, Ryu vanished and Pyrrha let go of Milo, her hand, and the sword glowed black, and when Ryu struck, Milo flew straight at him, both swords stopped an inch from their targets' necks.

Professor Goodwitch spoke into the dead silence that followed the fight. "This match is a tie!"

The students exploded into applause.

Day 37 part 3: Lightning

Purple Lightning watched the sparring match between Ryu and Pyrrha from a hacked security camera with a wide grin nearly splitting his face in half, a mad giggle escaped him as the Wind Samurai fought the Invincible Girl, the giggle became an elated laugh as the fight ended in a draw.

"Well, Wind Samurai, it seems you've gotten past your problem, and you'll actually be a worthwhile opponent." Lightning drew a katana, and drove it into the monitor in front of him.

"I look forward to our next encounter, Ryu Kawisaka." Lightning walked away, giggling insanely, yes, he was most definitely eager to fight Kawisaka again, and the next time, Lightning would drive his sword through the young swordsman's heart, emotionally, and then, literally.

* * *

(Author's Note: I hope I did that fight well, I've been looking forward to writing it for a while, please read, enjoy and review, thank you.)


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